Indian Study / Santal +++ by Miller et Bertaux 2017

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Portia

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Hi there Scent Hounds,

It seems Sandalwood is the new fragrant Pink Pepper and Oud rolled into one. Now that the Australian Mysore and Australian Santalum spicatum are doing big business the base note favourite is back in vogue and there are some excellent new fragrances using them as the core story. Miller et Bertaux have jumped on board early, releasing their newest baby Indian Study / Santal +++ in 2017. Libertine Parfumerie is bringing it into Australia and I got a sneaky sniff at their Winter 2018 Showcase.

Indian Study / Santal +++ by Miller et Bertaux 2017

Santal +++ by Miller et Bertaux Fragrantica.jpg

Libertine gives these featured accords:
Top: Mysore Sandalwood, Amyris
Heart: Cumin, Curry
Base: Woods, Musk

Indian Study is not a sandalwood in the Guerlain Samsara vein. There’s no creamy white floral or banana sweet ylang. It does not take over the room in an instant and become the headline sniff of the party. Imagine all the beauty of pure sandalwood given a lightly green touch, as if it has just come from the logging camp.

As the sun sets and the day cools the men pull out their spices to start preparing the meal for dinner time. They are not hot, cooking spices yet but as the tins open the air is redolent with their spicy invitation. Against the background of fresh hewn, green woods they are unexpected in my room. This far from the hard work of living we usually get our sandalwood dialled up to max and tropical.

Dry down becomes my memory of peeled bark. Australian trees are like snakes. Each year many of them shed their bark so they can grow again in the next 12 months. The bark also serves as a mulch barrier to the soils water loss, these trees are clever. This ground bark has a very specific smell over time. Lift a few pieces and the scent is woody, damp, cool and after a while smells like the earth it’s returning to. A hiding place for beetles, lizards, snakes and spiders they were a rich treasure trove for my sister and I to collect creatures from and take home to a bewildered and surprised Mum and Dad.

Libertine has $199/100ml with FREE Australian Shipping
First In Fragrance has €98/100ml and Samples

Are you a sandalwood lover?
Portia xx

10 thoughts on “Indian Study / Santal +++ by Miller et Bertaux 2017”

  1. I AM a sandalwood lover and this fragrance sounds good! Thanks for reviewing it , P! I am slowly coming around to liking cumin in my fragrances…I eat a lot of Indian food so always enjoy curry but it has taken me a while to appreciate it in my fragrances.

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    • ooo and I forgot to mention that I adore amyris in essential oil format…I have made body oils out of it by diluting in a carrier oil…very soothing…and a poor man’s sandalwood….

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    • Ahh, it’s really good.
      CURRY! I love curry. One day we need too meet up in India and EAT!
      Portia xx

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      • OMG!!! P! I need to win lotto so that we can do a world wide food eating tour together-LOL! India, Korea, China…I want to eat my way through the world 🙂

        the younger marzipans are very into ethnically diverse foods and have dabbled in making things from scratch….they cook, I eat-LOL!!!

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  2. I love sandalwood and prefer it less dressed up than in Samsara. Your description is really enticing, and for some reason cumin and I get along quite well. I rarely get the “pits” smell, or it just doesn’t bother me because I use it so much in cooking. I absolutely adore all kinds of curries both Thai and various Indian ones. What a great image of you and your sister collecting all the little creepy crawly critters and bringing them home to your folks. It reminds me so much of my own childhood.

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    • Hey Shiva-woman,
      YAY! Glad to entice you. He He he.
      I think a lot of us went collecting in our childhoods. The natural world was being brought to our attention through TV and school much more than our parents. Makes sense we were really interested.
      Portia xx

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  3. Eucalyptus trees were planted as windbreaks back in the agricultural days in Southern California. Driving by them I’ve always loved the piney scent of the different varieties we have. And to my eyes the texture of the bark is beautiful

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    • Ahhhh, are they Australian Eucalyptus or do you have your own on the American continent Claudia?
      Portia xx

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  4. I had a carved sandalwood fan that I loved as a child. It felt glamorous and smelled gorgeous with every waft. It was one of my treasures. I think my great uncle had bought it somewhere on his travels, maybe my grandfather who lived in India in the twenties. But along the way in one of fifteen, twenty house moves it got lost.

    But thank you for your description: I love reading about entirely foreign memories like this–trees that shed their skins, the specific smell of that bark mulch. (So different, say, from a rich damp carpet layered from years of falling beech leaves, or the dry floor of pine needles on the sandy soil at the edge of moorland).

    … now I need to dig out my copy of Murray Bail’s rather wonderful “Eucalyptus” and have a re-read.

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  5. Adore sandalwood, especially of the creamy/sexy variety. But this was too culinary for me. I love curry but I don’t want to smell like curry…

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