Sandalwood EO
Origin: India

• Details and product description

  Introduction:

  Sandalwood is a plant that has the particularity of being a hemiparasite, which means that it lives at the expense of other plants, called host plants, in which it sinks suckers in order to draw certain nutrients from them. Unlike a classic plantation, sandalwood thrives in a natural and wild habitat. This tree has a height of 8 to 10 meters, evergreen foliage and it blooms almost the entire year. The leaves are opposite, oval and have pointed tips.The bark is dark gray and vertical grooves appear in older trees. The tree has small, greenish, dark red or yellow flowers, composed of only 4 stamens emerging from the calyx, arranged in radial symmetry and without fragrance.The fruits are berries that contain only one seed and do not have a pericarp (outer covering) Master perfumers all agree that indian Sandalwood album has been and is still today the best quality. Unfortunately, until now no sustainability program for indian Sandalwood album is existing in India. At the demand of some big prestigious fragrance houses that wanted to use this indian album quality of essential oil, our partner was ask to set up a sustainable plantation and Sri Lanka was the perfect place to do it.

  History:

  Santalum album is originally from Southeast India, Malaysia and the island of Timor, where it grows in rain forests. The word sandal comes from the tree's name in Sanskrit, chandana, which became sandal in Arabic and then sandalum in medieval Latin. Album, in Latin "white", refers to the heartwood, pale green or white. The wood and essential oil of the sandalwood tree have today and have always had an important place in Hindu religious ceremonies, due more to the quality of its smoke and fragrance and the decorative religious sculptures made from its soft wood than for its medicinal properties. It is mentioned in the oldest Sanskrit literature, but, at that time, it does not seem to have been the subject of an important trade between India, China and their Western neighbors. In Egypt alone, there is evidence that it was used in the 17th century BC for embalming rituals and came from trade-link countries on the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. In Europe, it was not until the 5th century AD, during the period known as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea or Periplus of the Red Sea, that it was mentioned in the writings of Cosmas Indikopleustes. European medicine did not really use sandalwood until the end of the 18th century.

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