Patchouli, India
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Botanical Name: Pogostemon cablin
Origin: India, 2022
Process: Iron-Distilled Essential Oil, Dark
Note: Base
Perfumery: Excellent fixative
This is a gorgeous iron-distilled Indian patchouli oil bursting with its characteristically sweet, warm, rich, herbaceous, spicy, minty, woody, and earthy profile that makes it so valuable in natural perfumery and perfumery at large.
Comparing this Indian distillation to the more common Indonesian one, I personally prefer the Indian variety due to its deeper and richer profile that feels more earthy, chocolaty, and almost caramel-like in its sweetness, compared with its more herbaceous, minty and fruity Indonesian counterpart that feels lighter and more top-note heavy.
An incredibly versatile oil due to its outstandingly beautiful and complex profile, patchouli is a great fixative that can find use in almost all accords, from earthy, green and forest-type blends to spicy orientals, florals, and woods. It also improves with ageing if stored correctly, and should become smoother, rounder and fuller in profile with time.
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Santal de Ceylon
Botanical Name: Santalum album
Origin: Sri Lanka, 2021
Process: Hydro distilled essential oil
Note: Base
Perfumery Use: Excellent fixative
Distilled from wild santal roots in 2021, this is a gorgeous Sri Lankan sandalwood oil oozing with notes of gourmand woodiness throughout.
Unlike many other Sri Lankan santals which open with sharp piney-camphoric top notes - which I also adore - this oil is all about deeply rich base woods from the get-go.
Opening with freshly sawn woods alongside perhaps a slightly lactonic touch, it soon begins to transform into a sweet honeyed profile that reminds me of powdered almonds and tonka bean’s coumarinic marzipan-like goodness.
This golden-hued coumarin-like sweetness balances out a base of freshly sawn, almost dark red woods throughout the oil's journey, with some creaminess, and perhaps even a slightly musky animalic warmth deep down in its layers adding to its beautiful complexity and depth.
Overall, with its rich woody character and gorgeous sweetness, this makes for an exceptional sandalwood oil to wear neat. I also think it would work fantastically in blends and macerations, especially where musk or civet is used and/or a strong woody character is desired.
Ruh Khus 2018
There's vetiver, and there's vetiver. And then there's time. Time is an often overlooked ingredient in natural perfumery. When I first smelt this I instantly stopped what I was doing and listened. I listened intently. It was so rich, lush and mesmerisingly beautiful. This is how vetiver should be.
It's not that there's anything outlandishly unique about it. Quite the opposite in fact, it's just an excellently soothing vetiver. For vetiver fans, you'll know that not all vetivers are equal of course: some are too rooty and earthy, others too smoky and leathery, and others yet too light and watery.
But this to me is perfectly balanced. Opening with fresh grassy and sweet green hues, its lush notes are beautifully contrasted with dark, earthy and leathery qualities that keep everything in beautiful harmony.
Distilled at the end of 2018, this is by no means an old batch, but it also isn't new. Much like oud, sandalwood and a few other oils, vetiver improves with age, and the 2+ years this has spent ageing has really rounded it off into the exuberantly rich oil it is today.
To me, this is a benchmark of how an excellent wild North Indian Ruh Khus should smell. I present to you: Ruh Khus 2018.
Santal Signature 2020
NEW BATCH: Please note that I've renamed this Mysore sandalwood series to Santal Signature - India. The reason is that many Mysore oils today are likely distilled using at least some sandalwood from other regions of India or further afield - due to high demand and scarcity of supply of course. Therefore, I'm simply erring on the side of caution and will only use the Mysore label in future when I can personally oversee the provenance of the wood, selection, grinding and distillation etc.
Aromatically speaking, however, this oil is nothing short of gorgeous. Bearing the hallmarks of al-Hind's exquisite santals, it opens on the skin with a deeply sweet and smooth buttery goodness that's simply hard to beat. The sweetness here is especially beautiful, and the woody facets are smooth, rounded, and devoid of any sharp notes, almost as if caressed by the rich buttery nuances flowing around them.
Overall, the profile is deeper, woodier and richer than most, trading the light citrusy nuances for a deeper, almost musky, rich woodiness. Exquisite, whether worn on its own or in blends and macerations, this is Santal Signature, 2020. An oil that reminds you why the finest Santalum Albums of al-Hind are the true crème de la crème of santals.
Java Vetiver
Comparable in profile to the Madagascan variety, yet sweeter and lighter, this low-temp Javan distillation opens with a gorgeously sweet earthiness that's simply a joy to behold.
While not quite out-and-out floral or vanillic, it carries wonderful hints of those facets, intertwined together with earthy, woody and lightly smoky notes that all combine to create an incredibly beautiful and balanced opening.
As the scent progresses, it gradually becomes more tobacco-like, with dry-earthy, smoky, and astringent nuances - akin to red tea - as the sweetness recedes and its darker facets come to the fore - lasting for many hours with typical tenacity.
Overall, this is an incredibly complex oil that can be worn alone or used in blends, and a great example of just how beautiful vetiver can be.
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