How to Identify Red Sandalwood
Deep blood-red heartwood, extreme sink-in-water density, no scent, and the cues that separate true red sanders from padauk, bloodwood, and dyed fakes.
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Start with color and depth of tone. True Red Sandalwood heartwood is a rich blood-red to dark crimson when freshly cut, darkening to a deep purplish reddish-brown as it oxidizes, and it is typically far darker and more saturated than the bright orange-red of padauk. The narrow sapwood is pale yellowish-white and sharply set off from the heart. If a piece has aged to brown, a fresh scratch or sanded spot will reveal the deep red beneath, matching the deep reddish-brown of the sample.
Weight is the single most telling test. This is one of the densest woods in trade — genuine seasoned Red Sandalwood is startlingly heavy in the hand and a dry offcut will sink in water. A red board that feels only moderately heavy and floats is not true red sanders. Combined with its very high hardness (it strongly resists a thumbnail and dents little), the sheer density quickly rules out lighter imitations.
Look at the grain and end grain. The texture is fine, tight, and uniform with a waxy luster, quite different from the coarse open pores of padauk. The grain is straight to wavy or interlocked, and better pieces show a rippled or fiddleback figure. The pores are small and diffuse rather than large and ring-porous, so the end grain reads fine and even rather than obviously porous.
Use scent as a negative check. Unlike true fragrant sandalwood, Red Sandalwood has little or no aroma, so a strong sweet sandalwood smell means you have white or yellow sandalwood, not red sanders. The red dust, however, is a positive clue: sanding throws distinctly red-brown dust that stains hands and bench, and the heartwood will bleed red pigment into water or solvent.
The main confusions are with other red woods. African padauk is brighter orange-red, lighter, coarser, and openly ring-porous. Bloodwood (Brosimum) is a brick-red and dense but finer and more uniform. Various rosewoods (Dalbergia) are red-brown but usually more figured and often oily or scented. And a common trap is the unrelated Adenanthera pavonina, also sold as "red sandalwood" for its beads — plus outright dyed woods, which betray themselves by uniform surface color, low weight, and the absence of the deep heartwood-to-pale-sapwood contrast.
Frequently asked questions
What is the quickest way to confirm genuine Red Sandalwood?
Check the weight. Real red sanders is exceptionally dense and a dry piece will sink in water, and it is very hard to dent. Combine that with the deep blood-red to purplish reddish-brown heartwood, fine tight grain, and lack of any sandalwood scent, and you can separate it from lighter and coarser red look-alikes quickly.
How do I tell it apart from padauk?
Color, weight, and pores. Padauk is a brighter orange-red, noticeably lighter, coarse-textured, and openly ring-porous with large visible pores. Red Sandalwood is a deeper blood-red to purplish-brown, much heavier (it sinks in water), and fine and tight in texture with small diffuse pores. Padauk also throws orange dust versus red sanders' darker red-brown dust.
Does Red Sandalwood have a smell?
Little to none. That is a key identifier: the aromatic sweet-woody scent belongs to true sandalwood (Santalum). If your red wood smells strongly of sandalwood incense, it is not Pterocarpus santalinus. Red sanders is valued for color and density, not aroma.
Could my "red sandalwood" beads be a different plant?
Possibly. The name is also applied to Adenanthera pavonina, an unrelated tree whose bright red seeds are used for beads, and dyed woods are sometimes passed off as red sanders. Genuine Pterocarpus santalinus timber is dense, hard, and blood-red throughout the heartwood with pale sapwood, not a thin surface tint.
Red Sandalwood identified by the community
Recent Red Sandalwood samples identified with Wood Identifier.
