Santal 33 Le Labo 2011 Eau de Parfum

We may earn a commission when you buy from links on our site, including the eBay Partner Network and Amazon.

7.5 / 10 778 Ratings

Santal 33 (Eau de Parfum) is a perfume by Le Labo for women and men and was released in 2011. The scent is woody-spicy. The longevity is above-average. It is being marketed by Estēe Lauder Companies.

Layers well with S4ND4LW00D

We may earn a commission when you buy from links on our site, including the eBay Partner Network and Amazon.

Main accords

Woody

Spicy

Green

Leathery

Fresh

Fragrance Notes

Australian sandalwood

Leather

Violet

Ambrox

Cedarwood

Papyrus

Cardamom

Iris

Perfumers

Frank Voelkl, Firmenich

Ratings

Scent

7.5778 Ratings

Longevity

8.0674 Ratings

Sillage

7.5670 Ratings

Bottle

7.4622 Ratings

Value for money

6.1402 Ratings

Submitted by Kankuro, last update on 21.04.2024.

Reviews

34 in-depth fragrance descriptions

07/24/2019

6
Bottle 10
Sillage 9
Longevity 9.5
Scent

Carpintero
46 Reviews

Translated Show original

Carpintero

Top Review 43

The Holy Grail?

I was in Chicago last Monday for work, it was hot, right, really hot. I didn't know what to do in my spare time, so I wandered into a branch of a very well-known high-end department store in the USA and sniffed my way through the perfume department. A lady asked me if she could show me her absolute insider tip. Sure, I agreed right away. She sprayed Santal 33 from Le Labo on my skin. It took about 10 seconds and happened before I could have sniffed the scent when a man turned around and shouted "OMG what's that smell?" completely euphorically. He literally ripped the bottle out of my hand, sprayed the scent on himself and when he noticed what he had just done, he apologized and walked away.
As far as I was concerned, the fragrance didn't convince me much at the beginning: a little too much of everything. Too much wood, too much spice, too much freshness. Just a little too much of anything good.

The lady gave me another test strip on which she had sprayed the scent and so I set off for the hotel without having achieved anything.
I put the strip somewhere on a table and took a shower. When I came out of the shower and was still standing in the bathroom, I smelled it: This scent that blew from the desk in the bedroom into the bathroom - it drove me crazy.
I got dressed and hurried back to the perfumery, I wanted this scent, I got it. It was love.

The great thing about Le Labo fragrances is that they are mixed and bottled directly on site for one, even more freshness guarantee is really not possible.

On the return flight I couldn't stop smelling this scent, I was like in a Santal 33 scent cloud surrounding me, protecting me and no one, really no one could have broken this scent barrier.

If I ran, I'd feel like people were watching me. And although I haven't received a single compliment for this fragrance to this day (apart from my partner, quote: "You smell disgustingly good!), I feel like I've found the Holy Grail.

Admittedly, this fragrance is certainly not for everyone, but for me it is exactly what I was looking for: a fragrance that underlines my personality, that reflects exactly what I represent: Santal 33 is strong, but never intrusive. He's tasteful, but never daredevil. He's cozy, but never confused. He's curious, but never tactless. He's extroverted, but never loud. It's mysterious and mystical, but never played and artificial. It's just my scent, just perfect.
I would describe him as urban-woody: a guy who lives in the city, loves the forest air and the freedom of the forests.

Durability and Sillage are definitely above average with me, the performance is so strong, as I was not allowed to experience it with any other fragrance yet.
Santal 33 seduces without becoming kitschy or even pushy, without much blah-blah, but with a lot of style and class.

For me the fragrance discovery par excellence, the holy grail, which I believe to have found!

10/15/2019

5
Sillage 6
Longevity 8
Scent

Palonera
42 Reviews

Translated Show original

Palonera

Top Review 51

L'île des fleurs et des rochers roses - or: Dialogue with nose

"Fig!" says my nose and raises irritated the neighboring brows. "Didn't you say something about sandalwood?"
"Actually, yes," I think and critically eye the sprayer.
It says "Santal 33" on it.
It comes from Le Labo like all the other sprayers we've dealt with before, nose, skin and me.
Usually it's what's written on it, at least about.
This time however: "Fig - still. The wood, the leaf, the milk. But no pulp, no sweet juice. And sea air - can it be? Just like that time on the Bréhat Island, remember?"

Yes, I remember it - rough, salty sea air, rugged cliffs, the wind blowing my hair into my face, pulling my clothes, desert and wild.
It seems so peaceful, the island, down in the south, with its thousands of bees and flowers around Saint Michel, the old chapel, with its almost kitschy green meadows, where a cow gave birth to her calf right in front of our eyes.
And the fig trees, the innumerable fig trees with their woody, tart green, which is bitter in its fragrance and yet the juice contracts in the mouth.

"Stop dreaming!" tears my nose out of memories. "Are you wearing the old leather jacket again? "The brown suede one whose sleeves once went in the Indian sauce?"
No, I didn't - but I know exactly what my nose means.
Leather is there, velvety wild leather, a bit stained apparently by spicy dark juice, who knows where from.
And smoke, a little bit woody, a little bit resinous, holy not so much - a little bit but yet, far back, imagined perhaps only.
"Did you say wood?" asks nose, suddenly with light eyes.
Yes, wood is there, for sure - dark, soft, polished wood.
"Sandalwood?!"
"If I wouldn't say so - it's not that soft, balsamic or not at all, much too dark in addition. Cedar...? Yes, but - a bit of pencil would get there, only without a lead," I think, my nose close to my wrist, breathing slowly and gently, "and powder - mauve-coloured smooth powder, very little, very fine. What do you say, nose? Am I right?"
"Did you," let me nod my nose, "and brine is there, sometimes peeking around the corner, playing hide-and-seek. And something from your kitchen that you put in the orient dishes, something with K."
"Cubeb pepper?"
"I don't know - could be. Maybe cardamom or coriander. Ask the tongue, it knows better than that."
But the tongue stays out and remains silent.

"Were you in the sauna?" my nose asks me a few hours later. "You smell like wellness, like essential oils, like camphor, eucalyptus - somehow healthy!"
She's right, I think, and I breathe deeper.
Cool and warm at the same time is what now rises from my skin, surrounds me like an aura, light and dark, leafy woody, smoky and at the same time ether-fresh, grated grain of spices next to a sea of green rocks.
Every day a little different, sometimes green, sometimes brown, always powerfully accompanied by a dull, rich grey.
A little bitter, bitter and brittle - not really tangible and of deep fascination.
Like L'île des fleurs et des rochers roses.
PS: Ergoproxy - thank you!

06/14/2019

6
Sillage 4
Longevity 8.5
Scent

FvSpee
249 Reviews

Translated Show original

FvSpee

Top Review 23

Wood from the Labo - Part 2 (Sandal)

Apart from the unbearable tropical-humid heat of Berlin, it was probably also the nervelessness of the notoriously poor shelf life of all Le Labo fragrances I have tried so far that led me to Neroli 36 here instead of a serious review only a borderdebil-demideliranten verbiage could deliver. Unfortunately, my hope is that the wood fragrances will last longer than the citric ones
When spraying on about half a vial of a sample each, i.e. 0.75 ml or about 10 small sprayers on the neck and wrist (I don't find it stingy, do I?), I would actually have to lie, if I wanted to say otherwise, both with "Oud 27" and with "Santal 33" after four hours of scythe, end with funny, shift in the shaft. And that means a very close residual fragrance restaurant. Projection is well past. My nose is fine, as it appears when testing other scents (and because my wife confirms my findings), the samples are not superimposed. What are they doing? Incorporate a secret ingredient into all your fragrances that activates four hours after application and triggers fragrance self-destruction?

I don't care, I won't let you get me down and I'll continue to comment unabashedly, even if I take revenge now. Because I'm doing the same thing with my comments now and I'm using extender! I recycled this introductory part from "Oud 27"!

To the point: Santal 33 is something like the flagship of the Le Labo range. In the Le-Labo store in Berlin at the Ku'damm there is a sample of all the fragrances for testing, only from Santal 33 there are two or three, and the sellers have explained to me that this is the fragrance that made the company famous, so to speak, and anyway the absolute bestseller. I personally can't comprehend this soooo now; qualitatively I didn't find it better and not worse than e.g. "Oud 27" at the first test now. But to be fair, I have to mention that this was the first Le Labo where my wife recorded the weather unasked, put the nostrils in the wind and exclaimed enthusiastically: "Hmmmm! What smells so good here?!?" When testing other scents of the house I always had to ask actively, and the answer was then about: "Yes, hm, quite nice; if it's not too expensive" (which is unfortunately the case with LL). Maybe under this influence I liked it better during the second test (than before and as the Oud).

Similar to "Oud 27", "Santal 33" also impresses as a wood scent that is brushed against the grain of expectations, atypical because it is dry and absolutely damenkompatibler: in this case, it is not only damp young green wood, but light green, soft and flexible (you can almost feel the willow catkins). I can't detect a larger development, nor can I isolate individual notes nasally, but at least as much: In this very light green forest (perhaps a tree nursery?), which is a steaming one (a steaming forest, not a steamer, mind you), because after an early summer rain the sun bangs on it again, so in this forest flowers definitely bloom. I wouldn't have come alone with violets either, but I think they are absolutely plausible, just because they sound so cute because of the diminutive (they're not violets). I cannot confirm the dill suspected by some pre-reviewers. I like dill in salads, maybe sometimes in scents (in Goutal's Ninfeo Meo I thought I smelled a dill), but there's nobody in here (I say so) and wouldn't fit either. What has absolutely forced itself upon me (even before looking at the other reviews) is: Fig. Prominently, actually. Whether there is really real and in real fig contained or the warm-soft-vegetable of the fragrance has only condensed to a fake fig, may remain to be seen.

Conclusion: An annoyingly ephemeral but very beautiful light green soft sandal girl with fig violet willow stroking appeal.

01/07/2021

8
Bottle 8
Sillage 8
Longevity 5
Scent

Veithwa
1 Review

Translated Show original

Veithwa

Top Review 16

High expectation, bitter disappointment

Legendary... the scent of New York, the Holy Grail, a perpetual walker, perfumery art of all the first guard, compliments beast and everybodys darling.

I wanted to be a part of it all too, so my anticipation hadn't been this high for a long time to finally hold a fragrance under my nose.
Also the fact that one gets this fragrance just not on every street corner and only with difficulty his fingers to a filling did his remaining this perfume to mystify.
I got him but finally by fragrance mail of a nice Parfumos 3 days after order to eschickt, could hardly sleep during this time and read every evening to fall asleep diligently olfactory miracle stories.
Just by reading quite a few comments, this has unfortunately formed an expectation in my head, which could actually only be disappointed.

But now to the fragrance:
Freshly showered unpacked and zack, zack full of expectation and anticipation a splash right and left on the wrist and BUMM...my absolute first thought...
Did my girlfriend leave the pickles from the night before?

The beginning starts out for me as a waft of everything listed in the fragrance pyramid all at once. There pecks a little smooth leather through, here the violet leaf, there lets sandalwood hear from itself.
Only unfortunately in a, in its entirety - for me personally - such overloaded manner that I no longer really know what I actually smell. Overall, a large fragrance mush strikes one, which, I do not know why and how I come to it, one to one like vinegar / dill pickles smells. This impression unfortunately doesn't dissipate on my skin as it goes on and remains dominant until the end. The beautiful delicate notes, which flash at the beginning perhaps briefly and let me hope increasingly faded and back remained and remains just that uniform mush.
Now namely, 6 hours later unfortunately still the same. The fragrance makes for me no great development through..takes me just not in a amdere fabulous world and always smells the same. To stay with the metaphor: The story begins to bore me and to annoy.

In its defense and honorable mention, however, this fragrance cannot be denied decent longevity and sillage in my opinion. He is present. Just unfortunately not as I had dreamed of.
So it is now times with old legends, stories and wisdom, interpret must you each for himself.

I go on the search for my personal holy grail and begrudge it from the bottom of my heart to everyone who has found the same in this fragrance

05/21/2020

8
Bottle 7
Sillage 8
Longevity 8.5
Scent

Turbobean
29 Reviews

Translated Show original

Turbobean

Top Review 17

A signature scent for all occasions

Since I like to miss trends, I have only just discovered Santal 33.

That's what you get when you just rely on your own nose and give influencers a wide berth. Otherwise I would have long since realized that this fragrance has an exclusive fan base.

Seisdrum. Santal 33 convinced me right away. I love sandalwood and I perceive it clearly here. Especially in the top note
The ensuing cocktail of aromas is so diverse that individual odours are difficult to identify. I don't even know if the pleasant sweetness is fig or if a sweet fig aroma of wood and synthetics results.

In any case, I perceive dry wood, dill, honeydew melon, fig, iso-E super and also a fine ambroxan freshness.

The fragrance is round, pleasant and absolutely convincing. It is a very attractive and appealing blend, which I can imagine mainly on a man. Very attractive, but not ingratiating and not pushy either.

The field of application of the fragrance is manifold. I hardly know any other fragrance that can be used so universally. From the office to leisure time to the evening rendezvous. From spring to autumn, maybe even to winter.

A perfect signature scent when you are looking for the one for all occasions.

More reviews