I trust you’ve been loving my recent bulletins, as we do a deep dive into the wonders of Sandalwood oil.

To me, using an essential oil isn’t just about knowing its uses. It’s not just about opening a bottle, putting a few drops in your palm, and rubbing that onto your body or inhaling it.

That essential oil you’ve just put into your palm is the life force of the plant. It’s not just magically landed into your bottle. It’s something that has lived inside that plant or tree throughout its life.

In that time it’s helped to keep the plant healthy, to deter predators and/or to attract pollinators.

It’s been an essential part of the plant, and now it’s sitting in your palm, ready to gift you with its magic. The word “transfusion” comes to mind. Just as we might receive a blood transfusion from a helpful donor, here we are receiving an essential oil transfusion from a magnificent plant.

When we understand the plant, we understand its oil. That’s why I’m so passionate about teaching not only the benefits of the essential oil, but also the magic of the plant it comes from.

Sacred versus Royal Hawaiian Sandalwood

I’m often asked about the difference between Sacred Sandalwood (Santalum album) and Royal Hawaiian Sandalwood (Santalum paniculatum). This is a really interesting question.

In many ways, these two trees are very similar…but in other ways they are vastly different.

Both are hemi-parasitic trees. They need to live nearby to donor plants because they obtain essential nutrients from the root system of these donor plants.

It could be said that caring for a sandalwood tree is rather like caring for a Panda Bear – it takes a great deal of loving and nurturing to keep that plant thriving.

But because both species are highly regarded, they’ve also both been the victim of over-exploitation, taking them to the edge of extinction. Fortunately, people who really care about our Planet have been planting millions of these trees to save them from extinction.

That’s why where you source your oils is so important. When you buy either of these oils from Young Living, you know you are getting the best because it’s coming from a sustainable source. Not all essential oil companies source sustainably.

For Indian Sandalwood, trees are harvested when they are 15 years old, and in this time each Sandalwood tree will require 4 different hosts to survive.

For Royal Hawaiian Sandalwood, it takes 20 years before they are harvested, and each tree will require 5 hosts to survive.

Royal Hawaiian Sandalwood grows in a very small area on the Big Island of Hawaii, in the foothills of the Volcano. That puts it at a much higher altitude than Sacred Sandalwood – above 2,000 metres (6,500 feet) in elevation, to be precise. That’s high!

You can imagine the energy that goes into the Royal Hawaiian Sandalwood tree, growing so close to a Volcano!

We don’t know whether the elevation makes a difference – because when we look at the chemistry of the two oils side by side, they’re similar in many of their constituents.

I asked Dr. Mike Buch (who was Young Living’s Chief Science Officer) about the difference between these two essential oils for practical use.

Dr. Mike Buch said that Sacred Sandalwood is more potent when used on the body, whereas Royal Hawaiian Sandalwood is particularly good to use in the diffuser.

If you want to experiment with this yourself, do this simple experiment:

When I do this exercise in a class, the most common feedback I have is that Royal Hawaiian Sandalwood is lighter, happier and fresher (ie. more uplifting), whereas Sacred Sandalwood is deeper, more calming, soothing and grounding.

If you have a different experience to this, trust your own instincts.

Essential oils act intelligently on our body and our emotions, so two people can experience completely different results from the one oil.

The more you use your oils, the more each oil becomes like a friend. And being like a friend, you get to know its personality, and what other friends it would mix well with.

Without any formal training, you start to have this innate sense of “This oil would go really nicely with this oil”.

This is a fabulous skill to have when you are choosing oils to put in your diffuser and on your body – but it’s also a great skill to have when you’re choosing oils to put into your food.

For example, because Royal Hawaiian Sandalwood oil has a lighter, more uplifting smell, it blends beautifully with Jade Lemon oil. And because Sacred Sandalwood has a deeper, more soothing aroma, it blends beautifully with oils like Geranium, Jasmine or Rose.

The chemistry tells us something different, though

Remember I said that Sacred Sandalwood and Royal Hawaiian Sandalwood are similar in their constituents? That’s true…but they’re not identical.

According to this research study on the constituents of 5 different species of Sandalwood (see pic below), Sacred Sandalwood (SA) is 22% higher in alpha santalol, and 50% higher in beta santalol compared to Royal Hawaiian Sandalwood (SP).

In fact, Sacred Sandalwood is higher in santalols compared to all other species of Sandalwood.

You might be wondering why this is important. Santalol is a sesquiterpene, and it’s been the focus of hundreds of research experiments in recent years. In fact, the results have been SO amazing that if I told you about it, it would be considered a therapeutic claim.

Instead, I highly encourage you to google Santalol, and do your own research. I personally believe that we should all be using Sacred Sandalwood or Royal Hawaiian Sandalwood on our body and in our life every single day.

It’s no wonder that Sandalwood oil has been named throughout history as “Nature’s Gift to Mankind”. And it doesn’t only work on a physical level. Sandalwood oil works to clarify and still the mind, helping to stop us from over-thinking, and bringing us in touch with our creative spirit. In fact, Gabriel Mojay in his book Aromatherapy for Healing the Spirit says:

“While [sandalwood] can encourage states of “higher” consciousness, it does so not through any sort of other-worldly effect but by bringing us back to our essential self, to a more immediate awareness of palpable life itself. It is therefore indicated for states of obsessive worry, and for worldly “over-attachment”.

1. Hawaiian sandalwood: oil composition of Santalum paniculatum and comparison with other sandal species, by Norbert A. Braun, Sherina Sim, Birgit Kohlenberg and Brian M Lawrence, Natural Product Communications, 2014 Sep;9(9):1365-8.

Here’s How to Order

If you already have your own wholesale account with Young Living, you can order through the shopping cart on your virtual office, or via phone or live chat with your local Young Living office.

If you already have your own wholesale account with Young Living, you can order through the shopping cart on your virtual

office, or via phone or live chat with your local Young Living office. You will need their member number when you place your first order.

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