Sandalo e The (2005)
by Bois 1920

I find it thin, astringent, and discordant. Yes, the name and the notes are quite accurate. It starts with a very strong jasmine/floral note, backed by a hint of tea and a lot of sugariness. Some sandalwood eventually emerges, I think, but this is a waxy, wimpy sandalwood that does little to balance the overwhelming sweetness and the synthetic-smelling florals that dominate. This is the only Bois 1920 that I dislike.

Edit: Actually, the sandalwood deep in the base is pretty good...smooth and round. It just takes so long to get there, and I just don't like that harsh jasmine and tea accord in the heart. Ah well, maybe it's my skin.

I enjoy the opening of Sandalo e The: It is somewhat accurate in its name… it is wood and tea but with added citrus, herbs, and florals. The rather characterless tea / sandalwood is provided a minimum of sparkle by an orange note, a bare touch of cumin, and some rosemary and lavender. The tea is dull, and the “sandalwood” is wearing some sort of disguise. The lavender, as it so often does with me, rises to a prominence. While being quite complex, it’s an unusually bright opening for a sandalwood fragrance, and the lightness stays throughout the run of the fragrance. With the heart, the top notes are all but lost and, to me, the fragrance turns primarily floral – I get rose and geranium along with cedar wood – the florals do not last for very long at all. Except for the citrus in the opening, I don’t get any fruit notes or anything else sweet – to my nose it’s basically a wood fragrance with accouchements of temporary lavender and florals. The sillage is not strong at start and it gets softer as it goes along, so by the time the base comes around, I am having difficulty determining more than a skin scent. For what I can determine from the base, I get mainly a soft cedar, patchouli, and tobacco, with the wettish tobacco being the most dominant, but the base is so soft that the word “dominant’ hardly seems appropriate. I get no myrrh, but eventually the base fades away into a subtle sweet and wet tobacco note.

Bois 1920’s Sandalo e The doesn’t do anything for me because it comes across so weakly on my skin. The opening is enjoyable but then comes the lavender to dilute the experience, and the remainder of the fragrance comes across as weak and uninterestingly subtle.

The opening is very zesty & sweet. Lemon & sugarcane like sweetness (found in Virgin Island Water). Soon emerges the rose with spices and lots of cumin. Cumin is not 'off putting' for me since I love Kingdon by Alexander Mcqueen. What follows next is quite surprising. I can immediately detect its uncanny similarity to Davidoff - Zino. I am shocked how similar this it to Zino. I am not mistaken. Anyone who has tried Zino, can verify my claim. This sums it up for me. Zino is available at a greatly discounted price and has great sillage and longevity. I'd rather buy that then spend my money on Sandalo. I wanted to try this because I thought it would be a nice sandalwood scent but I can't really identify any sandalwood in it.

Overall not a bad scent particularly the opening, which I think is fabulous. It's hard to guess that a scent with such a 'fresh' opening will go into this sort of drydown territory. Ofcourse no points for originality. If it wasn't for the beautiful opening notes, I'd have given it a negative.

Top: tea leaves, cumin, lemon, orange, rosemary, lavender
Mid: rose, jasmine, hyacinth, geranium, cedar wood, sandalwood, patchouli
Base: myrrh, tobacco leaves
Sandalo e The is a complex, difficult-to-categorize scent… indeed an “odd duck.” I think part of the issue is how it reacts on male skin (judging from the reviews so far). On me, the particularly ‘male’ fragrance notes are accentuated (cumin, wood, and tobacco leaf). I wonder how this scent would be on a woman? The opening is very aromatic and quite interesting. The first time I tried this I got cumin, cumin, more cumin. That is the sweaty spice mentioned in the review below. The cumin circles around and reappears in every phase of this scent. Smoky lavender adds to the forceful entry. Then there is a woody middle phase. I got more cedar than sandalwood, and I enjoyed it. I didn’t get any florals the first time I tried it. The second time, my nose was accustomed to the barrage and I could detect nice floral notes, which are brief and frankly overwhelmed by the more powerful notes. In the base, myrrh is dominant. It is heady-sweet, perfumed and rich. The tobacco leaves are sweet, brown and tangy. The myrrh-tobacco chord grows and grows, and finally moves into a languidly sweet drydown. This is an interesting scent, but where’s the tea leaves and sandalwood? I like the aromatic, bold qualities, but in the end find it too sweet to suit me. But give it a try, it is different!

At first this is exactly what the label says: sandalwood and spiced black tea, sweetened by orange blossom and vanillic notes. The accord is just a bit too determinedly woody to make Sandalo e The a gourmand fragrance, but it does have a certain luscious, creamy olfactory texture. Bois 1920 celebrates the mystical, exotic side of sandalwood by setting it on a thick, honeyed oriental foundation.

An hour or so into its evolution and the tea has abandoned Sandalo e The to reveal a potent, ssticky, raisiny dried fruit note and a great deal of powdery amber. These notes increase in intensity until they all but blot out the woody accord. The result is a spiced holiday fruit cake smell not too far removed from Serge Lutens’s Arabie. At this point I start to find the fragrance syrupy, cloying, and unbalanced in its sweetness. This fruitcake accord continues for a couple of more hours before it diminishes enough to re-expose the floral notes and sandalwood. The composition is much better off for its revived sense of balance, but remains sweeter and more powdery than it was earlier. The extended drydown features extremely powdery, vanillic woods and amber.

In my opinion Sandalo e The is an odd duck. It starts out as a distinctive and compelling scent, but quickly discards its more distinguishing notes. (The very notes, in fact, that it is named for!) It then spends most of its life in a state of extreme imbalance before drying down back into something more composed and wearable. Fans of the sweetest Sheldrake/Lutens fragrances will probably appreciate Sandalo e The, but I’m not willing to endure its ooey-gooey Middle Eastern dessert of a heart just to enjoy the lovely first half hour.

If Kingdom is a dirty girl, then Sandalo e The is a really dirty guy. Though it starts bright and lemony, this one quickly descends into what can only be described as pure sweaty, sexy manliness. To my nose, it shares a lot in common with the dry down of Mugler's Angel for women, as it is certainly sweet and dark. It is kind of like sniffing a man's armpits, all of the spice with none of the mustiness. The composition is bold and full of contrast, definitely better suited for the braver, more confident wearers among us - two sprays will also last you all day. But believe me when I say, wearing Sandalo is like rubbing a sweaty, sexy rugby player on yourself. It's definitely primal and totally hot!