Sandalwood

Sandalwood incense is burned in temples throughout Japan, and this transports me to that zen place (literally a zen place :)! I really really like Demeter Sandalwood on its own or as a base note. It is entirely unisex -- mysterious and sensual on any gender. It isn't a childish or girlish scent and it can be worn from office to a date without giving anyone the wrong impression. It blends well with a lot of other scents, whether they are fresh, floral, or citrus. I like it layered with Demeter's heady Jasmine -- divine! I know Demeter changed their formulation to protect the endangered forest, and they should be congratulated for that. Whatever they're using, it smells great to me, and at this price point, what a steal!

OMG!!! This smells fantastic! It smells like high quality Sandalwood incense! I'm diggin this! Excellent Fragrance! I'm actually going to be ordering another 4oz in the next few weeks. I'm very pleased.

High quality sandalwood. This fragance is greasy, for that the longevity is good. Warm, sexy and real. Longevity: 7/10 Sillage: 6/10 Fragance: 10/10 Also I added 2 ml of australian sandalwood and 1 ml of authentic mysore oil, so now my cologne is 5 stars. For best results, use after a shower with mysore soap. You will be surprised

The current oil smells like sandalwood soap. A lovely smell. Lasts as briefly as most Demeter scents, but longer than more aromatic ones I own such as Gin and Tonic or Sushi. I can see using it after some Mysore soap as a skin conditioner before putting on Tam Dao.

A straightforward synthetic single note fragrance which leans more towards a light, sweet interpretation of sandalwood, which is pleasant and inoffensive yet lacks the depth, as well as the buttery, creamy and woodsy aspects of traditional oil-based fragrances. A simple, unpretentious single note, Demeter Sandalwood is unisex and could be worn for any occasion, although the longevity isn’t great and the silage modest, and it becomes a skin scent. Like all Demeter fragrances it works well when layered with one (or more) fragrances. Nevertheless it’s extremely affordable and for the price it unquestionably represents great value for money.

It's been reformulated and no longer smells like sandalwood. It smells like "sandalwood," what people who have never smelled real Mysore think sandalwood smells like, and not a very good approximation at that. A shame, because prior to reformulation, this was a dead ringer for real Mysore. Now, it's powdery and soapy and bears very little resemblance to actual sandalwood of any sort. Mysore sandalwood (the classic sandalwood note) smells like santalol. This is the main aroma component that gives the characteristic fragrance. It does exist as an isolate, but it is quite expensive, so most brands don't use it, instead going with something cheaper like sandalore or polysantol. They're both good, polysantol in particular, but nothing compares to real santalol.

Let me cut to the chase here. There is simply no trace of sandalwood in this fragrance. Don't get me wrong; it's quite a pretty, inoffensive, rather synthetically sweet, fairly feminine little scent that ends in a little puff of powder a few hours after being applied. But it has nothing - zero, zip, zilch - to do with sandalwood. So please do make sure you try before you buy!

I received today my Demeter Sandalwood that purchased from scentedmonkey.com, sorry to say it smells like soapy water. I don't find any hint of sandalwood. That made me decide to purchase Diptyque Paris-Tam Dao the fragance with real sandalwood.

Roll-on version. Smells like a bar of soap. It’s inoffensive but I cannot detect any sandalwood in this.

This is a disaster! Leave sandalwood alone, please!!

At the ripe age of 36, I decided to dip my toe into the world of woody perfumes, starting sensibly, or so I thought, with a supposedly clean, straightforward sandalwood. This one is often described as one of the least “contaminated” sandalwood fragrances available, free from the usual vanilla support that so often sneaks in. Vanilla, for the record, is a note I can’t stand, so this seemed like a safe place to begin. The optimism lasted seconds. I tore open the box like a child on Christmas morning, sprayed it straight onto my arm, and was immediately hit with buyer’s remorse. Sweet, not softly or naturally so, but in that unmistakable, cheap way that instantly recalls car air fresheners. It’s the human equivalent of hanging a synthetic pine tree from the rear-view mirror. As it dries down, whatever sandalwood presence there was fades even further, leaving behind a vague, lingering sweetness that never evolves into anything more interesting. The result is flat, synthetic, and deeply disappointing. I was genuinely heartbroken by this one, and I can’t recommend it to anyone. Unfortunately, this wasn’t an isolated incident, I had a similar experience just last week with Euphoria Gold by Calvin Klein, which followed the same trajectory: bland, sweet, and utterly forgettable. Not the introduction to woody fragrances I was hoping for, but a useful lesson in what to avoid as I continued the journey.

I've worn this (the rollerball version) a couple times now, and it is really very different depending on the weather. When it is warm outside (25-ish degrees C), it does indeed smell very strongly and warm(almost overbearing, but not cloying). However, when it is a cooler, rainy day, I do get the gentle, powdery scent others were talking about (reminding me of miyabi woman, though there it was blended with other notes). On warm days, it smells like how biting into nutmeg tastes (very strong, unpleasant when unexpected). When it is cool and rainy it reminds me of taai-taai cookies, comforting, a little tough and unusual. Not that it smells like nutmeg

True to Demeter's promise of high-quality sandalwood sourced from the world's finest suppliers, this is clearly the real deal and it whiffs exactly of incense and life's ancient mysteries. *However!* it is much too strong and masculine to be worn as a woman's fragrance, unless perhaps it's diluted and/or blended. In this case, less is definitely more. A direct hit off this stuff will overpower the senses and render your olfactory glands useless for a while. Ladies, don't wear this around your man or he will think you just got done making out with an exotic stranger whose cologne rubbed off on you.

This is a good one-note fragrance for sandalwood (Shall I coin 'solilignin', after soliflore?) This could be worn alone in a casual setting, or layered to give added complexity. It's not perfect, but perfection can be an enemy of the good. The scent leans more spicy than creamy, but the spiciness is rounded off and softness is not neglected. The comparison made earlier to sandalwood soap seems accurate enough. My bottle is the round 4 oz. perfume spray, now discontinued, which might imply an older formula. I don't know.

I bought a small splash bottle of the fragrance to start with -- and found I had to "splash" quite a lot on to get any sort of sillage or longevity. This surprised me, as the scent I got straight out of the bottle was strong, spicy and balsamic. On my skin, the effect was definitely warm spicy, and on the sweet side. Very pleasant, but not at all like traditional sandalwood, and not too masculine. I will definitely buy more, but given the longevity and sillage issues, I will be looking for a good bargain.

It's a nice layering base imo, a simple, clean sandalwood. I don't get much balsamic from it, mostly it's a soft powdery smell, but in a pleasant enough way.

This is a woody spicy cologne that smells great, but I have to agree with GartenGnome that this is very masculine.