Ah, the wonderful, long-ago days of fragrance, when perfumers used real Mysore sandalwood (santalum album); now, I only get to smell it in my vintage perfumes — where delicious, irreplaceable Indian sandalwood appears like a ghost, a reminder of a loved one long departed. I probably won’t live to see the return of Mysore sandalwood, if it ever returns — the best sandalwood oil comes from trees fifty years or older. The Indian government’s effort to save surviving, old-growth sandalwood trees is in disarray (with trees, even almost-worthless ‘teenage trees,’ being chopped down all the time on government and private property by thieves who trade in sandalwood oil).

Crabtree & Evelyn says the sandalwood in their Indian Sandalwood Cologne¹ (formerly named Sandalwood, and presumably tweaked) is from sustainably harvested sandalwood trees…

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