The quiet sandalwood decade
How a single accord went from a niche perfumer's signature to a global default — and why the imitations are getting better than the original.
In 2011 a small Brooklyn perfumer released a fragrance that would, within five years, become the unofficial scent of an entire urban demographic. It is a cardamom-smoked sandalwood with a violet leaf top and a paper-dry base, and you have smelled it on someone in the last week even if you don't know its name. The original is Santal 33. The imitations now number in the hundreds.
For a while, the imitations were terrible. Cheap synthetic santal turns sour on skin, and most of the early dupes leaned hard on a single material that smelled, frankly, like furniture polish. The first wave of imitators failed because they were trying to copy the molecule rather than the shape of the composition.
The second wave is different. Several houses — not just designer dupes but mid-tier niche brands — have figured out that what made the original work was not the sandalwood but the cardamom and the leather and the way the violet leaf cuts the warmth before it gets too much. You can now buy a sandalwood in this style for under $50 that wears better than the $300 original.
The accord, not the bottle
This is the lesson of the decade. We are no longer in a world where you must own the bottle to get the scent. The accord — that is, the recognizable shape of a fragrance — has become the unit of taste. People can describe what they want in accord-language now ("woody, smoky, a little dry") and find half a dozen perfumes that hit the same note.
Whether this is good for perfumers is another question. Whether it is good for the rest of us — who just want to smell good without spending a mortgage payment — seems clear.
The cheapest sandalwood that smells right is more honest than the expensive one that smells almost-right.
If you've never tried the original, do. Then try three of the alternatives and decide for yourself which version of the shape you like best.