Origins & milestones

Sandalwood did not arrive as one bottle. The timeline below keeps Grasse, Guerlain, Chanel, Nahéma and IFRA as proper names, not metaphors.

Read the years as a map of trade and reformulation, not as a ranking of beauty.

Timeline

1. AntiquityChandan

   Indian sandal in sculpture, paste and medicine; the wood is the culture.

2. Mughal–colonialKannauj attars

   Deg-bhapka into a sandal receiver — rose, kewra, jasmine ride the wood.

3. 1926Bois des Îles

   Chanel puts sandal under aldehydes.

4. 1989Samsara

   Jean-Paul Guerlain’s jasmine-sandal temple at late-extraît volume.

5. 1990s–2000sMysore crisis

   Overharvest and regulation empty the classic album pipeline.

6. 2003Tam Dao

   Diptyque’s temple woods as a European sandal memory.

7. 2011Santal 33

   Le Labo’s pickle-cedar-sandal; a city uniform.

8. CITES yearsAlbum controls

   S. album trade controls push Aussie spicatum and synthetics.

9. 2000sJavanol years

   Givaudan’s molecule becomes the “sandal” in most briefs.

10. 2010sPlantation album

    Australian and Pacific S. album as a legal luxury story.

The eras

• Paste and attar — Sandal as religion, carving and still-bed.
• Couture milk — Chanel and extras use album as a luxury fat.
• Temple marketing — Samsara and niche temples; harvest already failing.
• Crisis and Santal 33 — Synths and a pickle-wood hit redefine the note.
• Plantation + Javanol — Legal woods and molecules as the real supply.

Milestones

• Kannauj sandal bed — A technology: the wood is the solvent.
• Samsara, 1989 — Mass-luxury sandal as spirituality and cream.
• CITES + Javanol — The note survived by becoming partly synthetic.

Sandalwood keeps moving; the other six chapters say what one date cannot.

Origins & milestonesNotes & accordsCraft & methodCulture & meaningIcons & legendsHow to wearMarket & bottles