There's sandalwood oil, and there's sandalwood wood. The oil is valuable, and is extracted from the heart of the wood mostly for use in perfume, with enough fragrance left in the wood that it can be used for incense. Most Indian sandalwood incense will use synthetic sandalwood oils as they are cheaper and are widely regarded as more complete than natural sandalwood oil. Indeed, even expensive sandalwood perfumes will support the natural sandalwood with synthetics to fill in the blanks and to give a more rounded and complete fragrance. Asian incense uses sandalwood powder - which will vary from the white wood which has little oil, through the spent dark wood, where the oil has been extracted, to the pure heart wood still rich with oil. The pure heart wood would smell the best, but also be the more expensive. This Xiang Lian Tianran Tanxiang is not expensive, so is likely to be using the spent dark wood.
The scent, as is common with wood based Asian incense, is quite discreet, and takes its own sweet time to drift across and say hello. If I get impatient and waft the smoke toward me I tend to get the smell of smouldering paper or scorched wood. On the whole I find this too modest and dry and boring for me.
The scent, as is common with wood based Asian incense, is quite discreet, and takes its own sweet time to drift across and say hello. If I get impatient and waft the smoke toward me I tend to get the smell of smouldering paper or scorched wood. On the whole I find this too modest and dry and boring for me.
Available as part of a set of 11 fragrances from Amazon, Temu, and Shein, for around £8. Or by itself from DylansDen for £3.
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