We are thrilled to introduce you to our newest Oil Serum, limited edition Sandalwood Serenity Serum. Calming and luxurious, this simple blend of oils centers around the rare and precious sandalwood seed oil, a moisturizing lipid-rich oil that has been CO2-extracted from the seeds of the sandalwood tree.
If we were to christen this oil with a single word to encompass its presence and personality it would be this: Comfort.
Sandalwood Serenity Serum is a moisture-drench of comfort to the skin and to the spirit.
We finished formulation on this oil late last autumn after our team fell in love with its creamy, nourishing simplicity and the straightforward way the supporting oils elevate and uplift the remarkable effects of the sandalwood seed oil.
With the whole world in this strange, liminal place that has left our collective wells depleted, nerves flayed, and emotions on high, now seem like the perfect time to send this comforting cocoon of an oil out to our community.
Read on to learn more about this special, limited oil serum.
Sandalwood Serenity Serum
✤ Restorative. Calming. Comforting. ✤
Sandalwood Serenity Serum is a creamy cocoon that creates harmonious calm and extraordinary quiet in the skin. The star of this serum is, of course, sandalwood.
Two forms of sandalwood to be specific.
Sandalwood seed oil, the lipid-rich nourishing and moisturizing oil of the C02-extracted seeds of the tree, and sandalwood essential oil, the more commonly known therapeutic and fragrant volatile oil distilled from the wood.
We blend this double dose of sandalwood with our beloved nutrient-rich Al Amal Co-operative argan oil, and a little vanilla-infused Arizona-grown jojoba oil.
The sandalwood seed oil comes to us sustainably sourced from an Australian sandalwood grower. The essential oil is our beloved standby, Santalum paniculatum, a special variety of sandalwood that we source from a family-run reforestation project based on the Big Island of Hawaii.
While anyone can use and enjoy this delicious serum, the focused, soothing simplicity of this blend sinks the skin into an incomparable stillness, creating the perfect, quieting cocoon for the most sensitive, dry and irritated skin. Even the folks on our team with the most highly sensitive and reactive skin are able to use this little sweetheart.
Behind the scenes scoop: a member of our team described the scent of the serum as “Cookie-like,” and it soon became often colloquially referred to as “cookie face.” Or when paired with Douglas Fir HydroSoul, “Christmas cookie face,” or with Lavender HydroSoul, “Lavender cookie face.”
Sandalwood and the skin
As a plant, sandalwood is an incredible ally for dry, irritated, hot, red, flakey and seriously stressed-out skin. It’s fantastic for skin that has perhaps seen a little too much sun, and skin that is prone to blemishes or break-outs.
Its nature is cooling, calming, softening and moistening. Ayurveda recognizes sandalwood for its remarkable cooling and calming qualities and typically recommends it for pacifying pitta imbalances.
Sandalwood is generally known for its fragrant wood, and the essential oil produced therefrom. It’s been used therapeutically — especially in treating skin imbalances — for millennia, with the main treatment methods being topical: the application of the wood powder made into herbal packs, along with the essential oil and the hydrosol. And though new to the world of aromatherapy and natural skin care, sandalwood seeds have a rich history of use and reverence with the Indigenous Peoples of Australia, who have used them since time immemorial to care for skin problems, joint pain, and other inflammatory issues.
Sandalwood seed oil is abundant in the incredibly unique and rare fatty acid Ximenynic acid.
Because this lipid is so rare, and relatively new in science’s repertoire of fatty acids, there is not yet a tremendous amount of research on it, but the research that has been conducted confirms this: Ximenynic acid exhibits remarkable heat pacifying activity.
That makes sandalwood seed oil an exemplary moisturizing oil for sensitive, reactive, and irritated skin imbalances.
Sacred Sandalwood — A necessary comfort
Is there any plant more revered and sanctified than Sandalwood? Each culture that has come in contact with this sweet wood has deemed it one of the holiest of holies. This ancient tree is well known even now, and its name is familiar even to people with little knowledge of plants.
Sandalwood awakens the spirit and nourishes the soul. Its mesmerizing scent of creamy caramelized woods and its profound ability to unify, ground, and elevate has captivated humans for thousands of years. It seems to summon, or perhaps simply awaken us to, Divine Presence. From birth and burial rituals, to the building of temples and the carving of deity statues and prayer beads, Sandalwood is known to thin the veils between this world and the next and inspire connection with something more.
For millennia it has graced the pages of holy texts — both with its name on the page, and as the ink that scrawled the verses. The Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Old & New Testament, the Guru Granth Sahib — sandalwood has a home in each. It has also been traditionally used by the Indigenous Peoples of Australia to prepare for their adulthood rite, the Walkabout.
The Nature of Sandalwood
The Sandalwood tree needs the support of a forest to survive. It interlaces its roots with surrounding trees and relies on its community for support. Some consider it a parasitic plant because of this connection it creates, but since no damage is caused to the ‘host’ trees, our interpretation is something very different.
Sandalwood cannot be mono cropped. It requires community. It creates community. Sandalwood unites the forest, dissolving separation, and creating wholeness. It is said the trees growing among sandalwood also become fragrant.
Both physically and energetically, Sandalwood is deeply receptive and encourages receptivity in others. Its receptivity is why it is the perfect foundation for Attars. Attars are traditional Indian distillations that capture elusive scents like aloof flowers (jasmine, saffron, parijata, etc) and other unique aromas (like pure earth, known as miti attar) by distilling them in sandalwood oil for days on end. The end result is a divine union of fragrance — perfectly harmonized.
Sandalwood is also one of the few plants that is considered to possess qualities both meditative and transcendent, as well as sensual and aphrodisiac.
Sandalwood unites. Sandalwood brings us together, brings us closer. Closer to ourselves, closer to each other, and closer to the Divine.