Santal Royale

I won’t blame you for thinking you’re smelling a musk tincture. Or an ambergris concoction. The fragrance is so ALIVE it sends any other scent you’ve got on you to the back seat. For sandalwood oil, that’s an impossibility!

Yet that’s exactly what you’ve got here, and why Santal Royale opens the door to a whole new love affair.

Even pure oud gets a go. Dab your favorite Borneo on your other wrist, and see what I mean. And it’s a soulful multifaceted woodiness that’s so stupidly addictive it might just ruin any and all other sandalwood oils for you. It sure has for me.

So how did this whole thing start?

You know the linearity of nearly all sandalwood oils you’ve tried to date? From the richest and creamiest and brightest of them, to the most common oils you still find on the market? One thing they all share is the unitone, linear fade phenomenon, with almost no development on the skin; zero horizontal complexity; no layeredness. Just a slow fade of one and the same note that just gets softer and softer as if fades away.

Santal Royale changes all that. It epitomizes nu-perfumery in sandalwood distillation every bit as much as the Sultan Series did in Oud. That means you’re getting a vibrant, dancing Sandal Perfume composed of a single ingredient. But unlike the Sultan Series, Santal Royale is not a co-distillation. It’s not a combination of different santalum species combined to create something complex and multifaceted. The single ingredient used: 30-40 year-old red Mysore heartwood of the highest caliber.

Give anybody whose nose you respect a swipe, and I bet you they won’t identify SR as single-source, straight-up Mysore sandalwood oil. “C’mon, there must be musk, or cypress, or something in here!”

The scent is so vibrant it almost verges on animalics; but unlike with oud, there’s zero barn, or indol, or ‘pastoral’ elements. What you get instead is a musky Heavenliness that will cajole and soothe your soul to the serenest space, and send you nodding off to a realm of Zen. I personally can’t sleep without it.

What it does to stop racing thoughts and quieten the mind is miraculous. Something no oud oil can ever pull off. Where oud mystifies and bedazzles, Santal pacifies and beautifies. The two are the opposing Sublime and Beautiful, as defined by Immanuel Kant long ago and far away. (I know it is not in good taste to be literate in our day and age; so I apologize in advance for that bit.)

Our distillery has run several rare Mysore distillations during our oud-centric career, and we’ve gotten our hands on top notch vintage Mysores along the way: purebred buttery, creamy ghee santals in all their glory. But Santal Royale takes what sandalwood oil can be to a whole new level.

If you got some of our 70’s Mysore granules, or a 70’s Mysore Bangle, you’ve smelled it. A striking, deep spicy redness that hits you when you smell the granules straight. Or in the vapor when you gently heat them.

An incense-note Oud oil is a distiller’s dream come true, and makes for the most fulfilling oud experience. But have you ever smelled it in sandalwood oil? Amidst the butter and the cream, have you ever caught whiff of that red musky santalol vapor of high quality heated Mysore? Chances are, No. Or only in a vague I-wish-I-could-get-more-of-that kind of way.

Santal Royale not only captures the scent of gently heated Mysore chips, but for the first time you actually experience the Mysore creaminess complete with its aboriginal Redness. The effulgence of buttery red Mysore incredibleness is so replete, I almost feel like adding a disclaimer: beware the funk!

You might have actually heard seasoned sandalwood aficios lament that one oil they smelled just once, many years back. A santal that packed an ‘almost animalic’ dimension that was out of this world, the likes of which they never smelled again. Santal Royale is that oil, and that oil’s grandfather, brought back to life.

I’ve been infatuated with Mysore Sandalwood for as long as I’ve been with Chinese Agarwood, and Santal Royale is where these two worlds meet. If you ever dreamt of smelling the Mysore Sandal equivalent of Oud Royale, your dream has just been granted.

Here’s what other people are saying about Santal Royale…

I’ve been building Santal Royale up in my mind for over a year now, and it didn’t disappoint. When I burn Daihatsu slices on my heater, I’ll start off slow and increase the temp around the 40 minute mark. This seems to divide the session cleanly between the sparkling top notes and then the deep and buttery finish. Santal Royale progresses this way on my skin, but dials up the complexity. It’s uncanny. – Conner, USA

I find it so deep and interesting yet familiar as if I’ve been looking for this exact scent for years but didn’t know it. – Rabiea, USA

I am not given to flowery prose in trying to put to paper just how a certain scent evokes a feeling, so I will just say Santal Royale is something rather unexpected. I can not stop bringing my wrist up to breathe in this scent, slightly meaty somehow, coupled with this gorgeous creamy buttery scent that cuts in when I breathe in deeper. I love it […] Sitting out in the sun with this fragrance drifting in and out of my thoughts never felt so good. Many thanks Ensar. – Gary, UK

I have just got home and put on the Santal Royale and I am getting the hang of putting a small piece of wood at low heat. The swipe of Santal Royale with a low heat inhalation of 80s Mysore is a wonderful relaxing combo. I think I will enjoy having a swipe of oud and burning a similar chip and perhaps a drop of the oil in my tea will be the way to go. Once again I am very happy, truly very happy to be learning this and to have access to such rare and beautiful materials thank you!  –Richard, UK

This Santal is unlike any Santal I’ve ever smelled!  I smell a camphor in it…and the beautiful red sandalwood.  My, my, my…I’m aghast.  Wow.  – Beverly, USA

Santal Royale is one of the best sandalwood oils that I ever came across. And it is huge coming from a background of dealing with pure Mysore Sandal for all my life (35 years!!). Takes me back to my childhood, to the backyard of my house. – Ratnaditya, USA

Finally, I was able to smell Santal Royale. The first whiff gave me a deja vu feeling and flew me straight back forty years, to my childhood when my father brought chunks of Mysore sandalwood with him from India and used them to make santal wood syrup for us to rejoice with. The sweet and fragrant drink was then mixed with water and ice that quenched our thirst throughout summer. Santal Royale bought back all those memories that we thought were long forgotten and only waited to be rediscovered with Santal Royale. Such a pleasant and heart warming surprise!

For me, Santale Royale brings the ultimate feeling of peace, love and sense of being protected. It is warm, deep, woody and gentle at the same time. It reminds you about its serene presence even after hours of applying a small drop. I am very glad to have obtained it from you and I am sure, that it will become even better with age. – Imteaz, Hungary

When I laid my nose on Santal Royale, the first thing to strike me was the complexity. It is so rich and layered, that if you told me I’m smelling one of your oud oils, I wouldn’t argue. I get a beautiful camphorous note… and then this rich ‘butteriness’. When I smell it I feel like I’m transported into the middle of a forest, and inhaling the clear fresh forest air, enriched by the scent of the trees. – Radek, UK

With Santal Royale, it was game over. No need to try any other santal anymore. Thank God I have two bottles of it! – Michael, Austria

My uncle was ambassador to India in the 80s. When visiting in the summer, their home was in the hills above Bombay. Below were two temples – incense wafting in the air 24/7. Their nanny always had a transistor radio around her wrist. In the sun you could smell the copper coils from the radio and when this mixed with the mogra jasmine, champa and sandalwood – wow – even the dirt smelled good when this was in the air! – Mostafa, USA

I fell in love with Santal Royale… When I first smelt it, I was immediately reminded of something… something fruity… something I couldn’t quite put my finger on… it took me a while until I suddenly burst out “Mango!!!” Not the canned, instant stuff… not the Brazilian greenish ones… not like mango lassi… but fresh, soft, perfectly ripe, yellow Nepalese mangoes, dripping down our chins so we ate them over the sink so we didn’t create a sticky mess of ourselves… Funny, what images a fragrance can conjure up! – Barbara, Austria

That is as good and intoxicating as some of the ouds. This is creamy, this is sweet, this is calming. Did I say this was creamy? I just love this. – Danny, Canada

I applied some of the Santal Royale when it came and am breathing very deep on it as I type this and this stuff is just AWESOME. – John, USA

When I sampled Santal Royale, I was floored. It was everything sandalwood shouldn’t have been – complex. There was a balance between sweetness, floral, and woody components. My heart is with sandalwood now. I think it may be the most appropriate scent that I can wear in most everyday settings in the west without having nostrils flaring from the magnificence and novelty that oud exudes. – Guleed, USA

The opening is pure musk! I couldn’t believe what I was smelling. As it dries it becomes velvety soft and a little sweet. The creamy, almost gourmand heart notes remind me of my mother’s pumpkin bread recipe. There’s zero camphor or pine like you get with other Mysore sandalwood distillations. The musk note continues to linger and is still present alongside the classic Mysore sandalwood drydown. It’s more lively and tingly than a longer-aged sandalwood. A light camphor note comes in on the finish, edging out the musk to form a full-bodied, classic sandalwood. I will definitely be buying this again.

I gave a couple swipes to my friend. He proclaimed it to be the best sandalwood he’d ever smelled, bar none. After rubbing it all over his forearms, he lay back on the couch, tossed his head back, and declared his day made. He didn’t get up again for over an hour. – Duncan, USA

Santal Royale is intensely spicy and woody. There are tobacco, vanilla, musk and soft frankincense notes fused with the classic Mysore sandalwood core. It is a top notch aromatic experience from first swipe until the dry down many hours later. Now I wish I would have went with the 6 gram bottle! Keep these unique Mysore distillations coming! The Santal powder included with the bottle of Royale is fabulous. On the burner at low heat it is some of the most fragrant sandalwood I’ve come across! – Chris, USA

Speaking of Santal Royale… wow, amazing. If I would like to add another 3gr, could you give me the listed $650 for the total 6gr, meaning $300 for the additional 3gr? If I had known it was that good. – Brian, USA

Funky, Raw and Animalic
Spicy, Peppery Cinnamon
Heavy Cream Butter Spice
Hint of Lemon Zest Sweetness
Sharp Vanilla Tobacco
Pine Fresh Regal
Ambergris Golden Dew
Burnt, Rusty Caramel
Musty, Musky Red Sunset – Joel, Cambodia

I was lucky to have a sniff at it and it was quite unlike anything I had in my collection so far. Rather than calling it an oil, perhaps describing it as a ‘santal perfume’ might be a better choice of words. Its top notes were complex and multi-faceted, and despite its young age the base notes were deep and replete with santal richness. Yes, the underlying woody santal DNA was still there, but there was something more to it as the different notes interplayed and unfolded. – Melvin, Singapore

The Santal Royale smells like pure Musk to me and at the same time I know that it is sandalwood. – Naveed, UK

I was blown away by the power and longevity of the Santal Royale. – John, USA

I love the Santal. If it did not come from you I would not believe it was all sandalwood. It’s powerfully mystical. – Doug, USA

I freaking love it! – Phil, USA

The Santal Royale is heavenly. Just a mere touch and it sends one to Heaven! – Patricia, USA

Truly one for the ages. I really cannot believe the rich uniqueness of this oil, which is well worth the $350 – Lee, USA