I just found this in my raincoat pocket. I wondered where it was. One of the minor acquisitions from the astonishing haul I had at the beginning of May, I was curious to try it on skin. Though not a bona fide maharaja of santal, I do enjoy and crave a golden sandalwood every once in a while: I find the essence soothing, and enriching, at the spiritual level, and often burn sandalwood incense.
Getting my sandalwood fix when I need it from vintage Madame Rochas or Amouage Gold Man (I discovered recently that the ‘Cristal’ bottle I bought a decade or so ago for about ¥10000 (£60) is now actually retailed at £1,750 – wow, and it basically just smells like my beloved Imperial Leather Soap !) or else the occasional dot of Samsara extrait – ooh the Mysore! – Jean Paul Guerlain really did do some good sourcing there…… 。。。。I, like several other Black Narcissi, still nevertheless sometimes badly miss and crave the sandalwood of all sandalwoods, Sandalwood by Crabtree & Evelyn, one of the most pleasurable perfumes ever made.
Hoping that the Roger Gallet mini might take me on a similarly generous seventies odyssey of warmth and soap and sunlight on Indian sandal trees, I was disappointed, on application, to discover that Santal is instead a humorless beard twitcher, the type who likes to play acoustic guitar, alone, in a shed in the middle of a forest and plot against society. Dry, ‘herbal’ a bit ‘spicy’, I find this rather dull and small c conservative; sly. He might be swift-footed and sinew-muscled, this loner; good with his hands; well read — and I have no doubt that Lady Chatterley would be partial to a hard pounding or two behind the lathe on a summer’s afternoon – but no – with his steely gaze, his wooden crossbow hanging menacingly on the back of the door, I know that he and I most definitely wouldn’t get along.
Another trip down memory lane – the original Samsara ….. aaaah. Dear old Madame Rochas. C&E Sandalwood. Actually I was rather fond of R&G Sandalwood soap. Many decades ago my beloved boss gave me a box as a little going away present for my wedding, and that scent always took me back to the honeymoon! Sadly now the soap is not the same, it smells cheap. Another one bites the dust.
I bet you wouldn’t sell that Amouage bottle, even though you could make so much money! Oooh, Imperial Leather soap …. another favourite.
Imperial Leather soap is such a terrific skin base for perfume – I ADORE the original Roger Et Gallet soaps as well and am sure I would have loved the Santal. Their latest range has been somewhat crassened by the times but I do still love their Lavande Imperiale.
That last paragraph is priceless.
And it came out of nowhere !
Totally stupid – but that’s how it smells !
No sandalwood today touches the Indian Mysore Soap. Very drying to the skin so only used when thorough handwashing is needed. However, everyone using my bathrooms comments on how wonderful they smell.
I adore those too even if the ones I bought in Singapore undoubtedly weren’t real Mysore.
I would love a supply for life
Oh my, indeed down memory lane! 34 years ago, I was on holiday in Saint Petersberg in springtime. Remnants of the USSR and glasnost reforms, baroque splendour and unspeakable stench, and 28-year old me strutting up and down Nevsky Prospect doused from head to toe in Crabtree & Evelyn Mysore! I think I used up a whole bottle in two weeks! Tempi passati!
What a sublime image for me and memory for you. I have always yearned to go to Russia but doubt now it will ever happen .
What was the stench btw ?
( Also re the luxuriant spraying … that was the natural response to that perfume !)
Dear Lord, the toilets! Didn‘t matter where, the Winter Palace, the student hostel: one could only recoil in utter horror. It was truely vile…