Santal de Mysore (1997)
by Serge Lutens Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido

Everything said in these reviews is more or less accurate. Yes, we have some wood that may or may not include both sandalwood and ceder, but it does smell sandalwoody. We also have a bit of curry and also some sweet, syrupy caramel notes.

Now, the problem with this, I feel, is that there is too much goodness and it ruins the overall fragrance. I just think that sometimes, "less is more." After all, it's the notes you DON'T play that make the music funky. When a fragrance contains 3 potent smells all coming from different directions, it just makes everything a bit muddled, although I suppose that's what makes it a Lutens. The effect is feeling like you've eaten Indian food and syrupy pancakes while wearing a sandalwood oil.

It's difficult to express how this missed the mark of being a wearable masterpiece, but it did.

Whatever, due to the ease of acquiring samples and decants you can see if it works for yourself, so I'll leave you with a quote from Geordi Laforge,
"You don't have to take my word for it..."

16th April, 2011.

It is sandalwoody, but as a background to spices. I would place this in the Serge Spice catagory.
There is quite a bit of cumin in this, but it is a fairly well behaved and blended cumin, so beware if that is an issue for you. There is a creamy texture to this, thick and fairly sweet. It is, after all, a Lutens. Creamy cumin with a caramel hint, and always the faint background of sandalwood.
In the end, I wouldn't pick this as a sandalwood favorite if you were truly out to sniff the woodiness of the note, but for a spiced fragrance, the sandalwood offers a nice compliment. And you might also need to be a Serge Lutens fan.

1st April, 2011. (Last Edited: 21st September, 2011.)

The initial dry sandalwood and cedar blend is heavily spiced and discreetly seasoned with incense. Dark honey and signature Lutens-Sheldrake dried fruit well up quickly underneath, and soon overwhelm the woods to yield what I think of as the standard issue Serge Lutens “fruitcake” accord. (See Arabie or Rousse for an example.)

Happily, the honeyed fruit travels like a slow wave, so that after an hour or two of wear the woods resurface and the composition becomes more distinct and focused. Once Santal de Mysore regains its balance it continues in a more-or-less linear manner for several hours before drifting off in a fine mist of cedar. It projects with moderate strength and leaves a significant trail of sillage for most of its run – enough to make its presence felt, but not so much as to be intrusive. It’s a nice enough scent, deeper and more nuanced than Tam Dao or Satellite’s Padparadscha, though nowhere near as rich and dignified as Maître Parfumeur et Gantier’s Santal Noble. On the other hand, given its midfield stumble into syrup and the difficulty involved in obtaining it outside of the EU, I wouldn’t invest in chasing it down myself.

15th December, 2009.

A bit overly spicy at first, and a strange (to my nose) spice accord at that. After a while, the other notes chime in and I get why this is called Santal de Mysore: the Indian spices do their work in preparing the way for the resinous and woody base notes. Others have said there's no Mysore sandalwood in this; that may not be the point of the name after all. In any case, by the last phase, it no longer matters: to use a musical analogy, the chord is resolved. Beautiful!

28th November, 2009.

My one regret about this scent is the name. It is a beautifully complex spice concoction in the Lutens tradition and I loved every bit of it. Mysore sandalwood? Truthfully, I could barely find it; and yes, I have smelled the real stuff before. Perhaps a touch of it, but again it was smothered with everything around it. To use an analogy: it is like ordering the finest, most costly steak in a restaurant and smothering it with a delicious sauce that puts the meat the background. It may taste wonderful. Wouldn’t it be better to feature the meat instead of the sauce? Or use a slightly less costly meat? For me, this scent is great. Do us a favor, Lutens: substitute something for the mysore, rename it and reduce the cost to $140 for 50 mls. I think it could be done and if so I might actually buy it! Since I love the smell, thumbs up!

23rd November, 2009.

Santal de Mysore opens with an aggressive sweetness, but if one can hold on for a few moments, it rewards its wearer by transforming beautifully into a delicious, luxurious, undulating blanket of textures and sensations. The combination of creamy sandalwood densely packed with dry Indian spices enveloped by a layer of rich sweetness that in my mind's eye takes on an almost glowing, hot red hue is enough to put this guy "a swoonin'." A fantastic example of the Lutens esthetic.

28th April, 2009.