How to tell real sandalwood from what is sold as it
True sandalwood contains α-santalol and β-santalol; nothing else does. Amyris, cedarwood and red sandalwood are sold under the sandalwood name and contain neither. Real heartwood is dense, oily to scratch, and scented on a fresh cut rather than only on the surface. Certainty requires gas chromatography, not a home test.
This is the most useful thing to learn about sandalwood, and the least frequently explained. Analyses of commercial “sandalwood” oils have repeatedly found products dominated by compounds that do not occur in Santalum at all — which means a large share of what reaches consumers under this name is something else.
The single defining test
True sandalwood contains α-santalol and β-santalol. These two sesquiterpene alcohols are what the smell is, and no substitute species contains them. Every other question about authenticity reduces to this one.
That is why laboratory analysis is definitive and everything else is circumstantial: gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) shows you the santalol peaks or it does not.
What gets sold instead
| Sold as | Actually | Tell |
|---|---|---|
| West Indian sandalwood | Amyris balsamifera | Dominated by valerianol and elemol. Woody but flat, with no creamy depth. The most common substitution by far. |
| African sandalwood | Osyris / Brachylaena spp. | Harsher and drier. No santalols. |
| Red sandalwood, rakta chandana | Pterocarpus santalinus | Deep red, dense, essentially odourless. A real material — just not this one. |
| “Sandalwood fragrance” | Synthetic santalol analogues | Javanol, Polysantol, Ebanol and similar, usually in benzyl benzoate. Often smells more sandalwood-like than the real thing. |
| Sandalwood powder | Cedar or mixed sawdust, dyed | Uniform colour, dusty rather than oily, scent fades within weeks. |
Australian sandalwood (Santalum spicatum) is a genuine Santalum species with real but lower santalol content — a legitimate different product, not a substitution, provided it is sold under its own name.
What you can check yourself
These will catch crude fakes. They will not catch a good one.
Scratch it, don’t sniff it. Surface scent means nothing — anything can be dipped in fragrance. Scrape a fresh surface with a blade. Real heartwood is scented through, and the fresh cut smells stronger than the outside.
Weigh it in your hand. Santalum album heartwood is notably dense. Light wood for its size is sapwood or another species.
Look for oil, not dust. A fresh scratch on real heartwood leaves faintly greasy shavings that clump. Dyed cedar produces dry dust.
Check the colour goes all the way through. Powder that is evenly, brightly coloured has usually been dyed. Real sandalwood powder is an unglamorous pale buff and varies slightly batch to batch.
Watch what the label avoids saying. “Sandalwood fragrance”, “sandal essence”, “with sandalwood” and a botanical name that is anything other than Santalum album or Santalum spicatum are all telling you something.
What a laboratory looks for
If a supplier provides a certificate of analysis, these are the numbers that matter. Steam-distilled Santalum album oil is dominated by santalols, with α-santalol the larger fraction; S. spicatum carries meaningfully less. Thin-layer chromatography can also separate species by their banding pattern without full GC-MS.
Two cautions on certificates. A certificate for the species is not a certificate for your batch, and a document with no laboratory named, no date and no method is decoration.
Practical advice
Buy billets rather than powder wherever possible — wood is much harder to fake than a milled product, and you can apply every physical check above. Expect to pay accordingly; the price is the most reliable signal available to a non-specialist. Treat any supplier unwilling to state the botanical name and country of origin as having answered the question.
Related
- What sandalwood paste is
- How to make sandalwood paste — grinding from a billet sidesteps most of this problem
Common questions
- Can I tell real sandalwood at home?
- You can rule a lot out. Density, the scent of a fresh scratch rather than the surface, and how the wood behaves in water will catch most crude fakes. You cannot confirm authenticity at home, because a good synthetic on ordinary wood passes every physical test.
- Is red sandalwood real sandalwood?
- Not in the botanical sense. Red sandalwood is Pterocarpus santalinus, a different genus, valued for its dense red timber and used in Ayurvedic practice for different purposes. It contains no santalols and is close to odourless. It is a legitimate material sold under a confusing name.
- Does a low price prove it is fake?
- Nearly always, yes. Santalum album heartwood is among the most expensive timbers in the world and is tightly regulated. Paste or powder priced like an ordinary cosmetic ingredient is not made from it.
- What is Amyris?
- Amyris balsamifera, a Caribbean tree marketed as "West Indian sandalwood". Its oil is cheap, superficially woody, and contains valerianol and elemol rather than santalols. It is the single most common substitution.
Sources
- A Comparison of the Composition of Selected Commercial Sandalwood Oils with the International Standardpmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govCited for: Analysis of retail oils showing Amyris markers and synthetics in place of santalols.
- Characterisation of sandalwood essential oils using high performance thin layer chromatographyro.ecu.edu.auCited for: HPTLC and GC-MS fingerprinting used to separate Santalum species.
- Sandalwood essential oils: How to choose between the different typesoshadhi.co.ukCited for: Common substitute species marketed under the sandalwood name.
- Advances in biotechnological production of santalenes and santalolspubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.govCited for: Santalols as the defining constituents of sandalwood aroma.