Sandalwood

Comptoir Sud Pacifique Le Roi Santal
Notes: orris, cabreuva wood, cedarwood, sandalwood

When I think of a sandalwood scent in my head, I imagine the smell of a small carved fan that I once owned.  The smell was faint, but it was pure and unadulterated sandalwood.  Once in a while, I encounter a sandalwood note in a fragrance, but it smells more of cuminy sweat, or it's powdery and weak.  Intellectually, I've come to recognize them and accept them as "sandalwood" although both versions seem wrong to me.   Le Roi Santal, despite including other wood notes, smells exactly like the sandalwood note in my brain - slightly smoky, a tad sharp, deliciously woody. It also, for some reason, reminds me of London, specifically my solo trip there in the fall of 1989, so I must have been wearing a sandalwood scent at the time.

Then, in the drydown, my sandalwood memory is joined by a bit of sweetness that is almost almond-y.  It doesn't alter the scent too terribly much, but enough to kill whatever memory triggers lived in the top note.  

L'Orientaliste Santal is a bit different.  While it does have the proper sandalwood note, there's also something else in there, a brightness that is a bit on the floral side.  Additionally, there's something dry and slightly medicinal, like very weak oud.  It reminds me a lot of one of my favorites, Gap Om, the notes of which are "incense and musk."  Since I already have a hoard of three bottles of the latter, I won't be adding Santal to my collection, but I do think it is a lovely version of sandalwood.