Has anyone bought sandalwood pieces online? Or offline.. any reference please?
Having heard of fake sandalwood, it’s really difficult to trust online sellers. I want to buy some sandalwood billets or pieces/ powder for medicinal purpose.
Is it safe to buy sandalwood billet online?
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You will get all sort of sandalwood products in good shops. Why online?
I will be spending some time in Kerala and briefly visit Bangalore. Plans to visit other places are spoilt due to Covid-19. Are there reliable places in Kerala to buy sandalwood? I will fly back to New York as soon as possible.
i think there is some restriction regarding transporting sandalwood. there is a limit of how much you can take out from india. we had gifted a sandalwood designer box to our visitor from the us. the shop person told us there is some restriction but only applies to wood pieces without any art and craft.
So outdated customs rules.
Don’t ever buy sandalwood from Flipkart. As I wrote in another thread, there are so many fake product sellers. I just viewed some selling 100g sandalwood for 150 rupees. The genuine cost would be rs. 1800 or more.
not at all recommended. buy sandalwood from a reputed shop. in bengaluru there are shops like cauvery emporium or something managed by government. you should buy from there. they will give proper receipt and the wood wil have stamp of authenticity
Sandalwood is very cheap in local shops. Dont buy online
Duplicate sandalwood is a very common thing all over India. The cheap ones are usually by products after essence/oil has been extracted from sandalwood by boiling and chemical processing. Wood pieces will still comtain minimal quantity of the scent.
Lot of fakes are also in the market. What you see at one tenth price could be a random wood with sandal scent added onto it. Or wood soaked and boiled along with a piece of sandalwood. You get what you pay for.
There are Sandalwood trees near my place. Most of the time the trees gets stolen even before they are mature. Those are sold locally at a very cheap price.
If there is a Govt shop, nothing like it. They should be selling genuine products.
Where in bangalore during lockdown?
Thanks guys for your input. Glad to see the recommendations. I was worried about customs duty on sandalwood. To my surprise, nobody ever asked about the sandalwood billets in the airport.
Cauvery Handicraft in Bangalore sells authentic sandalwood items. 100g billets are like 2000 rupees.