The Sandalwood Tree

Sandalwood is a type of tree with a highly aromatic fragrance. Even though it’s heavy, slow growing, and rather difficult to deal with, the beautiful fragrance has made it a staple of many cultures for centuries.

In fact, sandalwood keeps its fragrance for decades.

There are many different types of sandalwood trees, but the primary one used is the Indian Sandalwood tree. This is because it produces the most oil.

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History and Use

Sandalwood has been used for more than 4,000 years, and is probably one of the most important trees in all of India. In fact, it’s considered sacred. Indians have been using the wood to create figurines, sandalwood paste for marking the forehead, scented oil, temple doors, incense, and jewelry such as malas for countless generations.

But even though they’re the most widely recognized culture to use sandalwood, they’re not the only one.

Both the Tibetan and Chinese cultures use it in traditional medicinal practices as a form of antiseptic. Buddhism and Islam used it for ceremonial purposes, or to mark disciples. Even the ancient Egyptians used it for embalming purposes.

Dwindling Supply

Unfortunately, due to the fact that sandalwood is in such high demand across the world (particularly in India), the sandalwood tree is in danger. This is due to the fact that the industry is highly lucrative and the trees take over 60 years to fully mature.

Even more disastrous is the fact that there is a lot of illegal harvesting going on in the country. But this is why at Sivana, we have very little sandalwood jewelry; what options we do have for sandalwood products we make sure is ethically harvested or fair trade.

Hopefully, we can contribute to turning this trend around!