I heard this scent was a must for sandalwood lovers, and a friend kindly gave me a sample. The Laura Tonatto line is difficult to obtain, unfortunately. The notes are orange, lemon, lavender, black tea, and sandalwood.
It is a sweet sandalwood, slightly resinous in the top notes, and smells to me like there is a good amount of patchouli in the base, and possibly some amber as well. Plaisir, my favorite scent in Tonatto's line so far, also has patchouli, but in Plaisir it is subdued; in Sandalo it is rather overwhelming to a patchouli-hater like myself. I will give this another try, but doubt it is going to work for me. I will stick with my beloved Diptyque Tam Dao.
Another sandalwood possibility: I did a quick sniff of the Sandalwood Eau de Toilette by The Art of Shaving at Neiman Marcus over the weekend, and it seemed interesting. Will try to get a sample of this on my next visit.
This can be found at http://www.theperfumeshope.com on line. Ask for Naz, she's great. I need to put in an order based on a recommendation she gave me for LT Ambrosia. It is a rose/amber blend that worked well for me. LT line is also a eco-friendly — naturally dervived and does not test on animals.
The line is now coming to Barneys as well.
I found this in the clearance section at Kuhl-Linscomb today. I tried the tester, and to me it smells like it has oud in it or something like that. I got this really strong, really persistent, peppery/medicinal/slightly b.o. note. I wasn’t fond of it. The oudy note lasted a long time and, while it was still present after several hours, it had mellowed and got better. Don’t think I’d buy it even at half price but it was interesting to try. I ended up buying Plaisir unsniffed (there wasn’t a tester open).