Santalum Slivers

Santalum Slivers is one of the most straightforward and, shall I say, “easiest” perfumes on offer from the brand in my comprehensive experience so far. Don’t take simplicity and “inoffensiveness” to mean boring or lacking the artistry we’ve come to expect from John Pegg. As a sandalwood centric perfume, it is one of my favorites I’ve smelled for quite a while. If I want a sandalwood forward perfume to wear, the first three to enter my mind are this, a Serge Lutens (one of his small handful of good sandalwood perfumes), and Chanel’s Bois Des Iles. Yep, I put Santalum Slivers up there. The opening is quite hesperidic, significantly focusing on oily and zesty orange skins with flecks of sour citrus juice. However, this accord immediately locks hand-in-hand with an aged wood. The sandalwood is already in action, but neither the hesperidics nor the wood are trying outdo each other. This hand holding is tight and truly loving; they are inseparable. The hesperidics do eventually dry down to leave the sandalwood to its own devices, and it’s gorgeous. White woody, creamy, peppery, musky, slightly sweet, and given the texture of silk. Pegg is obviously using a sandalwood material, but he’s combined it with beautiful hay and cedar materials to impart sweet woody florals and gently peppery notes to help the sandalwood feel much more complete. A touch of lactones for creaminess and some clean musks give the sandalwood a beautiful texture. For a bit of levity and lift, vetiver is also present in its green woody state; the touch of youthful vibrancy is welcome. Anti-Pegg. Anti-Kerosene. I may have been able to guess this was Pegg if smelling it blind since there are a couple stylistic traits in here: air, space, and haze. But, I bet I would’ve gotten it wrong a few times before finally getting it right. Creating something very simple but very beautiful is much harder than creating something complex and beautiful; in simplicity there is nowhere to hide or anything to conceal possibly poor decisions. Pegg didn’t make a single misstep here.

After sampling and wear testing, I knew I needed to upgrade to a full size of Santalum Slivers. This is one of the few fragrances that made me emotional upon first wear. It brings memories of my late-mother, a woman who loved nature, herbs, and apothecary plant medicine. Maybe it’s the prominent grapefruit citrus notes evoking memories of her essential oil blends in the diffuser or her homemade natural bug repellant spray. This fragrance feels like a deep hug from her, with comforting bergamot and soft vetiver. Whenever I wear it I can’t help by continuing to smell my skin deeply. The cedar base feels like walking through the shaded coniferous woods, following behind her while we forage for ephemeral trout lily shoots and mushrooms. It’s a comforting citrus-forward, aromatic scent that leaves a lasting scent trail and resonates on a deeply personal level for me❤️

I have just received my order of samples from Kerosene , and I want to review each one as I try them . Santalum Slivers is the first I reached for . This is a great artisinal fragrance . In the opening, I get a nice citrus blast of grapefruit , orange and bergamot .This citrus infusion sticks around for a good while, and I feel this would be great for spring days . On the dry down , I get a peppered cedar , with just a hint of that initial citrus bast remaining. I think this fragrance is quite good . This is for someone who truly sees fragrance as art , and wants something quite different than the traditional offerings . With the samples , I don't feel it fair to speak to sillage or longevity as a spray application has a different end result than a dab on , but with that being said, I am quite satisfied with its performance in dab on application.

I finally got a bottle of this! The opening is a super citrus blast orange then turns into grapefruit. Really every part of the orange you can smell. The juice the rind pith all of it. I really dig it. I can clearly smell the cucumber in here and it gives it a fresh kinda aquatic quality. I can def smell the hay accord it’s more of a herbal green note imo. Dries down to a bit of sandalwood too. Just overall fresh clean and something different than most of the freshies I’ve encountered. My wife absolutely loves it. She smelled it on me and I could see her eyes light up. Definitely gonna be a spring / summer banger for me! Happy I got this definitely something ultra different but yet super fresh clean and delicious all in one. This and pacific chill are gonna be my new warm weather rotation.

Well, bust my buttons, I found a citrus scent that lasts for more than an hour! I keep inhaling my clothes and smelling sugar-coated grapefruit everywhere I walk. Sugar is not a note listed here, but my God, I smell it in the best way. I'm getting almost nothing but candied citrus, and I'm so ridiculously happy about it. I love just about every genre of fragrance, but I always come back to citrus being my favorite, which is a heartbreak because rarely do I find any that are long-lasting. I've been wearing this one for 6 hours, and it's still going strong. I would like to smell the cedar, rose, and cucumber, but I don't miss it. I'm just tickled pink I'm STILL smelling grapefruit. This is exactly why you test before purchasing.

SWEATY SEXY GRAPEFRUIT This scent is a hot-breath-on-your-neck + prickly/spicy citrus that is so sharply beautiful in the blaring heat of summer and spring. It's sticky and perverse. Musky & hot.....Sweaty ?sometimes. Very masculine. Passes my "is-fresh-but-doesn't-smell-like-aftershave" standards. Most prominent notes for me are Grapefruit, Vetiver, Bergamot, and Musk. I am a certified grapefruit HATER in real life, but Santalum Slivers took me by surprise and completely skirted the evil bitterness of the grapefruit. Projection is decent and silliage of the musky base notes will last all day

Another winner for Kerosene. Santalum Slivers is a refreshing green citrus and sandalwood scent. The opening is bergamot, orange and grapefruit primarily, and it is musky in the drydown which accents the sandalwood beautifully. There are a lot of notes listed that I have not noticed in this my maiden voyage with Santalum Slivers. I don't get hay or cucumbers at all, though both are components. Pretty, fresh, wearable even for office and with that special Kerosene quality and purity of the scent. Try it and see!

At spray, smells like fresh squeezed orange juice. The orange transforms into grapefruit and is joined pretty quickly by sandalwood, fresh herbs (basil?) and white, light floral. There's enough going in that it's intriguing, but its simple enough that its approachable and can be appropriate for a lot of situations. A really lovely scent. Projection is on the lighter side, and longevity around 5 hours. You'll need to spray more heavily if you want it to be noticeable beyond hugging distance.

This is one of my favorite perfumes. I thought that the sandalwood would be more prevalent but there is a lot of fresh citrus such as grapefruit and orange which is not a problem for me! It is not an offensive scent at all and is appropriate for daytime/office. I use it almost everyday and am on my 2nd bottle.

This is the most underrated fragrance I have come across. New spring daily driver. Please, please continue to not like this because it’s perfect.

Photorealistic freshly peeled kumquat with a pleasant musk underlining. Love it.

On me SANTALUM SLIVERS is all about the citrus and woods. The opening is all tart, bright, freshly squeezed fruit with just a hint of peel to keep it from being sweet. As citruses go in this house, this is not as bitter and bold as SUMMER OF '84 but it is smoother and a bit less... emotional. This is a more professional, composed fragrance. The dry down retains the citrus start but the big star is the blooming sandalwood. It's more of a clean wood than creamy and supported by finely nuanced notes that gently jostle for position in the background. Hay, vetiver, cedar, musk, they all make an appearance as it transforms. I didn't really catch the cucumber or rose but I might have missed them if I wasn't paying attention when they appeared. SANTALUM SLIVERS is a smooth and classy scent that smells expensive. Perfectly unisex. If you love citrus and woods I highly recommend you buy a sample and experience it on your own skin. Please remember to give it the time to show you all it's facets. P.S. I think Kerosene is an underrated house because people do not expect fragrances to transform throughout the wear. Mass produced, generic scents that remain "stable" with only a brief hint of top notes that quickly burn off, have conditioned consumers to have a short attention span and limited understanding of how a carefully crafted fragrance can perform. Kerosene brings an entire scent story in a bottle. Each one is a journey that lasts hours. Just as you can't accurately judge a book by it's cover, you can't judge a Kerosene scent in a few moments by spritzing on a card. You must spray on skin and give them at least 4 hours to fully display development. NOTES FOR ME I really enjoyed this sample but SANTAL CARMIN is my perfect sandalwood as it's slightly sweet and creamy. So, no full bottle of this beauty at this time. Maybe if I lived in a warmer climate this could be a great signature scent in summer. Keeping a sample to test when it's warm. (I also did not get any hint of the dreaded dill that can sometimes ruin sandalwood for me like in Commodity's BOOK and The 7 Virtues, SANTAL VANILLE.)

This is one of the most refreshing scents I have smelled to date. A great opening mix between bright, realistic citrus, cooling and watery cucumber, and a dry yet slightly peppered rose. The citrus in this is very realistic, and encompasses all the facets of each individual fruit: the flesh, the rind, and the pith. Grapefruit and orange are the two that stand out the most to my nose, but I can definitely still smell the bergamot and lemon if I focus in on it. The main shining star of this scent though is the cucumber, wow. I love the smell of cucumber though, so I may be biased, but this is so watery and refreshing it's beautiful. The marine/aquatic facet of this fragrance is much more subdued and plays along with the citrus unlike "Summer of 84" by Kerosene which is much more of a citrus evolving into an aquatic. As this dries down from the initial bright blast the creamy sandalwood and musk begin to come into the picture making it more in depth than just another bright citrus with a green/aquatic facet. The bulk of the fragrance is like drinking a mix of cucumber, lemon, and rose water with the musk of your body under the summer's sun; all the while the hot cedar chips from the mulch heat up and push up too. The final pieces of this fragrance are a mix of creamy sandalwood, musk, cedar, and a faint memory of the water-y mix. I think I like "Summer of 84" better, and having both might be a bit redundant, but this is also much more versatile as you can wear this casually or formally. So84 is a bit too sweet to be worn formally. Leans slightly more masculine as it reminds me a lot of the idea I have in my head when I think designer Pour Homme fragrances, but anyone can pull this off. Mid Spring - Whenever it stops being hot in the fall. Great longevity for a citrus freshy, decent silage. Good value, John always makes beautiful stuff. 8.7/10

Santalum Slivers is one of a few entries from Kerosene that seems geared toward warm weather wearing rather than cold weather wearing, and as a woody/citrus blend, it can even lean toward year-round usage. Its main characteristic is a blend of sandalwood and several citruses to create a fresh woody/citrus mix that leans slightly masculine but is really quite unisex, then is blended with pepper, musk, and vetiver in the dry down. It's predictably a very pleasant mix overall, perhaps the most inoffensive offering from Kerosene, and, with Summer of 84, the only offering that seems more geared toward warm weather usage. It performs pretty well, perhaps on par with Summer of 84, so more like a warm weather option that's a little fleeting but with some good base notes, but not up to the performance of most of the line. For me it's a "like" not a "love" though, much like Summer of 84. I would like to continue to wear it but don't feel inclined to buy a bottle of it. 7 out of 10

Fresh and woody masculine fragrance. This scent feels like what the hot male lead would wear in a cowboy romance movie. Sweaty, dirty, sexy. Opens with a punch of fresh grapefruit/citrus. I do get a hint of sandalwood in the middle but quickly evolves into that sweet, dusty smell of hay. Like I said, hot cowboy cologne. The base still maintains a memory of the grapefruit but actually wears down to lots of pepper and cedar. I actually find projection of this scent to be less intense than some of Kerosene's other fragrances, which I think only adds to the allure of it. A fragrance you could only smell on someone if brought out by the heat and moisture of a summer day, or you were nuzzled up close after a long day of work. Those who are easily offended by peppery/lemony/green smells will want to steer clear of this smell, but if you're looking for a fresh escape on a sweltering day you might enjoy this either on yourself or your partner!

First blast of sweet clean lemony pomelo citrus and for a fleeting second, black pepper. After a minute, the sandalwood starts to show itself but the citrus remains quite dominant. The black pepper note remains elusive, playing peekaboo while the citrus and sandalwood continue to develop. I don't get any of the rose or other woody notes quite yet, I suspect they'll join the party later. Hopefully so since this perfume is pleasant and well made but not original or groundbreaking; it's a nice freshie. Unisex and best for hot weather. 6+ hours later: The sandalwood has become the main note now with a healthy assist from the citrus. Overall, it's still nice but I think I'd get Etat Libre d'Orange's Remarkable People over Santalum Slivers. Both are great citrus/sandalwood scents but RM had just a touch more going for it.

I'm biased towards grapefruit, and I think in order to like this perfume, you have to appreciate grapefruit. You also have to have an open mind about perfumery. Kerosene is never pleasing. I would like to describe Santalum slivers as something of a 'dirty grapefruit'. I don't really get the sandalwood very much, it's not really creamy or lactonic, probably because the grapefruit is leading me astray. Not office friendly (frankly, no Kerosene fragrance is). Although, if I really had to chose one for the office, it would probably be this one. It's tart with the grapefruit, and the rest is kind of... unusual. Notes that aren't really made for each other. Like an odd bunch, but it just works anyway. However, somehow I like it quite a lot.

This to me is a dark, wet citrus. The only notes I could smell trying this blindly were the orange, wood, and musk. But now reading the note breakdown how could I miss the cucumber! The cucumber combined with the rose is what makes this fragrance wet-feeling to me. If I'm not mistake a fragrance with vetiver and cedar would be considered masculine but this smells unisex to me. I would recommend this fragrance to someone who wants to smell fresh and interesting. A smooth, peppery cucumber and orange combination definitely is interesting to me and smells good besides. I'm left wondering if any of the samples in my Kerosene tin are gonna smell bad or if this is a clean streak.

In the summer, this sings. First spray smells like the pith of an orange but then it settles into something more seductive. It's sexy, carefree, earthy -- windows down driving through country roads. In all other seasons, it veers overly masculine and sandalwood heavy on me.

First impressions from a tester strip: orange and other citruses, with woody undertones. I can't specifically spot sandalwood. Simple and nice. Simple but very well done niche freshie, honestly priced in view of the great quality.