Candana
Quick Facts
- What it is: Candana is the cooling, scented heartwood of the white sandalwood tree, used in Ayurveda on the skin and as a cold drink.
- Main uses: Hot, itchy or inflamed skin, Acne and oily skin, Burning when passing urine, Thirst and fever heat, Calming scent
- Best for: Cooling hot, itchy skin, Face packs for oily skin, A calming evening scent
- Active ingredients: Alpha-santalol, Beta-santalol, Santalenes, Tannins
- Forms: Heartwood powder, Paste made on a wet stone, Cold water soak (drink), Steam-distilled oil for the skin, Tablets, Incense
- Time to effect: Cooling on the skin within minutes; any internal effect takes days to weeks.
- Side effects: Mostly skin rash from the oil; swallowing the oil can harm the kidneys.
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What is Candana?
Candana is the scented heartwood of the white sandalwood tree, Santalum album. In Ayurveda it is a cooling herb. Healers grind the wood to a paste and spread it on hot, itchy skin.
It is also taken as a fine powder or as a cold drink. Old texts use it for thirst, for the heat of a fever, and for burning when you pass urine. The oil is used on the skin and as a scent.
Here is the short verdict. The tradition behind Candana is deep and very old. Good human trials are thin, so long use is not proof that it works.
How does Candana work?
No one has shown how Candana works in a living body. What we have is lab work.
Most of that work looks at the wood oil. Its main parts, alpha-santalol and beta-santalol, calm swelling in skin cells in a dish. They also slow the growth of some germs and fungi in a dish.
Ayurveda tells it a different way. Candana is seen as cool, sweet and bitter, and is used to lower pitta, the body heat and sharpness in a person. That is a traditional model of the body, not a lab result.
What happens in a dish often does not happen on a person. Read all of this as a best guess, not as a fact.
What forms does Candana come in?
You will meet Candana in a few main forms. The wood is the base of all of them.
Heartwood powder is the classic form. It is mixed with water, milk or rose water to make a paste for the skin, or stirred into a cold drink.
A wood billet rubbed on a wet stone gives the same paste in the old way.
A cold water soak, left overnight and strained, is used as a drink. Tablets and blended powders are sold too.
The steam-distilled oil is used on the skin, in creams, and as a scent. Incense sticks are made from the dust. The oil is not meant to be swallowed.
Where it comes from:
Candana has been used in India for well over two thousand years. It appears in the Vedic hymns and in the classical Ayurvedic texts of Charaka and Sushruta.
It spread far beyond India. Chinese medicine uses it as tan xiang, and Tibetan medicine uses it as a cooling drug. Hindu, Buddhist and Jain temples burn it and mark the skin with it.
That wide reach across several old systems is why its traditional standing is rated at the top tier.
Wild trees are now scarce and the trade is watched and limited by law in India and abroad.
Who should avoid Candana?
- Do not swallow sandalwood essential oil, ever. It has been linked to kidney irritation and blood in the urine. This rule applies to everyone, at any dose.
- Do not use if you have kidney disease or only one working kidney.
- Do not use if you have blood in your urine, side pain or an unexplained change in how much you pass.
- Do not use if you are pregnant or trying to become pregnant, because the effect on pregnancy has not been tested.
- Do not use if you are breastfeeding.
- Do not use if you are giving it to a child under 12 by mouth without a doctor's advice.
- Do not use if you have had a rash or an allergy from sandalwood, sandalwood oil, or perfume that contains it.
- Do not use if you take lithium, unless the doctor who checks your lithium levels agrees.
- Do not use if you take water pills (diuretics) and have not asked your doctor first.
- Do not use if you have asthma or COPD (a long-term lung disease) and are thinking of burning the incense indoors.
- Do not use if you are due to have surgery within two weeks, unless your surgeon knows.
- Do not use if you have a fever, a urine infection, or a spreading rash that needs a doctor, and you plan to use it instead of proper care.
When should you see a doctor?
See a doctor the same day if you notice blood in your urine, pain in your side or lower back, or if you pass much less urine than usual.
See a doctor soon if burning urine lasts more than two days, comes with fever or chills, or keeps coming back.
See a doctor if a rash spreads, weeps, blisters or is very painful, or if a skin problem has not settled after four weeks.
Get emergency help if your lips, tongue or throat swell, or if you struggle to breathe after using it. That can be a severe allergic reaction.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
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