East Indian Sandalwood Oil

#### Sandalwood Oil, East Indian. Sandalwood is one of the oldest known perfume materials, and it has at least 4000 years of history and uninterrupted use. It is believed that the *oil** *of sandalwood was known in Ceylon over 1000 years ago, but it is only within the past century that the oil has appeared in European and American perfumery. The oil is steam distilled or water distilled from the coarsely powdered wood of billets and roots of **Santalum Album**, a comparatively small tree. The tree originates in India, Ceylon, Indonesia and surrounding islands, and it grows wild in the Portuguese island f Timor and on Celebes, among other places. Today, practically all Indian sandalwood oil is derived from the wood of cultivated trees, although cultures outside the native areas of the tree have never attained any importance. India exports some quantities of wood, but 80 to 90% of all the wood is distilled in India. Timor exports all its wood, and many of the smaller islands also have no distilleries at all. **Sandalwood Oil**, distilled in Europe or the USA., may derive from Indian wood (most often), from New Caledonian wood (certain French sandalwood oils), or it may be distilled from Timor wood (one Dutch producer seems to specialize in this oil). Of an estimated annual world production of over 100 metric tons, about 75 to 80 **% **is produced in India under government control (Mysore, etc.). A sandalwood tree must be over 30 years old before its wood is suitable for distillation. Comminuting of the wood is not an easy job (3 progressive steps often required: sawing or cleaving, chopping, grinding), and the distillation also requires considerable experience, many hours of operation per batch, large amounts of steam or heating of the water, etc. For such reasons, it is understandable that the cultivation of the tree has remained an Indian tradition through thousands of years. Very recently, small lots of East African sandalwood oil (from Kenya) have reached the world market, but this production is still on an experimental scale. **East**** ****Indian**** ****Sandalwood**** ****Oil**** **is a pale yellow to yellow, viscous liquid, having an extremely soft, sweet-woody and almost animal-balsamic odor, presenting little or no particular topnote, and remaining uniform for a considerable length of time due to its outstanding tenacity. The oil blends so excellently with rose, violet, tuberose, clove, lavender, bergamot, etc. etc., that it is almost a common "blender"-fixative in countless woody-floral and Oriental-floral bases, chypres, fougères, clover, carnation, origan-types and other perfume type. Furthermore, the oil is used as a base for co-distillation of other essential oils, e.g. the most delicate florals: rose, mimusops elengi, anthocephalus cadamba, pandanus, etc. (see these monographs). In India, the so-called "attars" are made with sandalwood oil distilled over such flowers, or by distillation of these flowers into a receiver with sandalwood oil.) As a background note and sweet fixative in ambre perfumes, in opopanax and "precious wood" types, it is almost obligatory, and it blends beautifully with the ionones, methylionones, oakmoss and labdanum products, patchouli oil, vetiver oil, natural and artificial musks, geranium oils, mimosa absolute, cassie, costus, clove bud oil or eugenol, linalool, geraniol, phenylethyl alcohol, hydroxycitronellal, bucinal, cyclamal, etc. As a flavor material, sandalwood oil is of little or no importance. It has a slightly bitter, resinous taste, and requires skilful blending in order to become attractive. The oil is still used in certain types of the old-fashioned "Sen-Sen", a sickly- sweet tasting, "Oriental"-smelling licorice candy which is used for the masking of bad breath (see monograph on **Patchouli Oil**). **East Indian Sandalwood Oil **is not infrequently adulterated with Australasian sandalwood oil (lowers the laevorotation), with araucaria oil, copaiba oil, heart fractions of aged Atlas cedar-wood oil, amyris oil or various rare East African wood oils (e.g. the Brachyleana Hutchinsii, see **Muhuhu Oil), **with bleached copaiba balsam or with various odorless solvents such as benzyl alcohol, benzyl benzoate, diethyl phthalate, isopropyl myristate, liquid paraffin, etc. etc. For pharmaceutical purposes, the oil is usually rectified in Europe and the U.S.A. Rectification includes steam distillation and drying of the oil. Although of some therapeutic value, the disinfectant use of sandalwood oil has been largely abandoned in most parts of the world.