What is Sandalwood Essential Oil? - By: Jeff Thomsons

Sandalwood oil has been used since centuries for different purposes. Almost all the sandalwood oil traded today comes from the roots and heartwood of the tree species Santalum album.
African and Australian Sandalwood oil though produced is not as popular as Indian sandalwood oil is. This great oil has got a woody and sweet odor, which is used widely in the fragrance industry. Almost all the high end perfumes consist of sandalwood oil. The superb blending properties and high boiling constituents of this oil makes it as a perfect fixative for being used in fragrance. In India, it is also used for the manufacturing of traditional attars.
India along with Indonesia is among the major exporters and producers of this great essential oil. In terms of consumption also, India leads the front. France and U.S are the biggest importers of sandalwood oil as a lot of perfumery industries are located in these countries. The demand of sandalwood oil declined in 1970-1980’s due to exorbitant prices and also a stiff competition from other synthetic substitutes. However, improved technologies brought down the production costs of this oil and it again rose to popularity in the year 1990 onwards.
The plant from which the sandalwood oil is extracted is small to medium sized plant. The height sometimes goes up to 18 meters and it is around 2.5 meter in girth. This one is a root parasite. The formation of the heartwood, which is required to make sandalwood oil, ideally takes place at 600-900 meter. The cultivation of sandalwood is a complicated process. Some people argue that uprooting of matured trees, which is a must for the extraction of sandalwood essential oil, may put the environment in danger. However, it is also worthy to note that sandalwood trees produce seed and natural regeneration of trees occurs in seedling and root suckers that are produced when a sandalwood tree is cut. The heartwood formation continues from years 35-50. Some diseases like spike are perhaps the biggest threat to sandalwood trees. The trees of all sizes and ages are prone to the dieses and when they are infected with the diseases they tend to die within a period of 3-4 years.
The harvesting of sandalwood tree for the parole of oil extraction basically takes places just before the monsoon season. Once the tree is felled, its wood is cut into billets. The heartwood and sapwood of the tree are demarcated and after that sapwood is removed from the tree. Since sandalwood is highly valuable, thus a lot of smuggling takes place. During the distillation process the wood billets are chipped and then converted into powder form. Majority of the sandalwood essential oil that is produced these days use the process of steam distillation. Earlier, direct water distillation was used for oil preparation. However, the high boiling nature of sandalwood oil makes the entire process very slow and thus steam distillation is preferred. The yield of heartwood also varies from location to location.

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