Healing Power of Sandalwood Sent?

http://www.newscientist.com/article...eems-to-help-it-heal-itself.html#.U8MtMo1dVRx

Interesting. Apparently skin reacts to various scents and Sandalwood promotes healing. Maybe there is a reason they Sandalwood is so popular for shave soaps. Personally I'm not a huge fan but I may need to check it out.

Never shaved with a sandalwood scented cream/soap. The smell did not appeal to me.

Szyman01 said:

Never shaved with a sandalwood scented cream/soap. The smell did not appeal to me.

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I agree, it's not my favorite either. The only one I've tried was TOBS cream in a sampler when I first started DE Shaving.

I have always gotten compliments from the ladies when I use my sandalwood AS and Cologne. The scent lingers too so it doesn't take much.

Interesting that this was actually due to the smell rather than it being an EO rather than an FO - which considering the cost of the Sandalwood FO (in the US at any rate) it is good news indeed.

The Efficacious Gentleman said:

Interesting that this was actually due to the smell rather than it being an EO rather than an FO - which considering the cost of the Sandalwood FO (in the US at any rate) it is good news indeed.

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I always thought the "EO is good for you" and "FO is bad for you" line of reasoning was bunk. Just as silly as believing something "all natural" is automatically good for you and "artificial" is automatically bad for you. The good thing about the study was that sandalore oil is a synthetic fragrance, so it didn't even have to do with real (and extremely rare and expensive) sandalwood at all.

Now where do we find shaving products with sandalore oil in them? Be nice if it caught on and all these companies started putting it on the label to garner more sales. As it stands most sandalwood scented products aren't very good. TOBS is the worst of the lot, sandalwood corrupted with cedar to give it a generic "woody" scent and then filled with a bunch of extra scents like lavender, rosemary, jasmine, and rose.

Lomoru said:

I always thought the "EO is good for you" and "FO is bad for you" line of reasoning was bunk. Just as silly as believing something "all natural" is automatically good for you and "artificial" is automatically bad for you. The good thing about the study was that sandalore oil is a synthetic fragrance, so it didn't even have to do with real (and extremely rare and expensive) sandalwood at all.

Now where do we find shaving products with sandalore oil in them? Be nice if it caught on and all these companies started putting it on the label to garner more sales. As it stands most sandalwood scented products aren't very good. TOBS is the worst of the lot, sandalwood corrupted with cedar to give it a generic "woody" scent and then filled with a bunch of extra scents like lavender, rosemary, jasmine, and rose.

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I think pretty much anything that says sandalwood would not be the EO unless it was stated as such. If it says "parfum" in the list and sandalwood on the front, chances are it'll be the synthetic.

As for the EO/FO debate, I still think that in many cases it does hold true - when treating things directly, rather than by scent. For example, lavender EO is good on burns (when mixes with a carrier oil!) whereas the FO would not really do anything.

One thing which should be considered is the actual amount of any Essential Oil used in a product. Often the fragrancing of a formula is at or below 1" of the total formula. So, if you are discussing a shave soap or other product (not a perfume, eau de toilette, cologne etc.) then the formula may have many scent chemicals and or essential oils to form the fragrance blend so we are talking miniscule amounts of each. It is enough to scent the product but it is doubtful that it would have enough "healing powers" that say, a bottle of the Essential oil could have. Just something to consider...

Shaved with sandalwood items this afternoon!
Immediately, noticed that my age wrinkles were receding!
But, so was my hairline!
Help! What should I do?!

Proraso Red Shave Soap has a pleasant sandalwood scent.

Thanks for the link. Very interesting.

I do not think natural sandalwood is per se so expensive. There is more than one variety--if I try to state the scientific names, I will probably get them wrong--and Luca Turin would say they are distinct in smell, because they are very distinct plants. "Australian" sandalwood, as I understand it is not so expensive, and Art of Shaving products are based on it, as I understand it.

The traditional Mysore sandalwood, is scarce and threatened with extinction, indeed. But I assume that whatever the Mysore soap Indian government owned company is using to scent its soaps is an EO of some sort of sandalwood from somewhere and they must use a good bit of it because the soap is strongly scented.

Otherwise, I am pretty well convinced that most of my favorite scents are loaded with artificially-created FOs of one sort or another, and I am not too perturbed by that.

I read that it is only the synthetic, "sandalore," that demonstrates these properties.

Interesting. Thanks for posting that.