June Thirtieth Serene Santal Eau de Parfum

June Thirtieth Serene Santal is the third fragrance from June Thirtieth, a New York house, and a sandalwood built on cardamom, orris and New Caledonian sandalwood. It was composed by Patty Hidalgo of IFF, launched in 2025, and is sold in a 50 ml bottle. Fragrantica classes it as an oriental woody and rates it 4.38 out of 5, and the house states it as unisex.

What It Smells Like

Serene Santal opens dry. Cardamom leads — green, cool, faintly camphorous — with olibanum behind it and magnolia supplying the only floral lift in the composition. Olibanum is frankincense resin, and it brings a dry papery smoke rather than a church-incense weight. An airy note sits across the top, which is the industry term for a transparent accord built to suggest space and open air rather than any single material.

The heart is unusually crowded for a fragrance that smells this calm. Orris and vanilla bean sit together with Peru balsam, cedarwood, cypriol and rum. Orris is the decisive one: it is the rhizome of the iris, aged for years before processing, and it smells cool, powdery and faintly of carrots and violets. It is what gives the middle its suede texture. The rum extract is the surprise, warm and faintly boozy, and cypriol — a smoky, leathery grass root — keeps the whole thing from turning soft.

The base is sandalwood, and the house specifies New Caledonian rather than Mysore or Australian. It is the creamiest of the sandalwood origins, milky and slightly sweet, and here it is supported by cashmeran, musk, patchouli, ambrette and amber. Ambrette is a musk from hibiscus seed; it gives the drydown a skin-like quality rather than a laundered one.

Fragrantica's community ranks the accords woody first at full weight, then powdery at 87 and warm spicy at 81, with iris at 50 and aromatic, musky, amber and balsamic beneath. That powdery-second reading is the honest description of this fragrance: it is a sandalwood filtered through orris, not a sandalwood soliflore. It is rated 4.38 out of 5 there from 29 votes.

Who Made It

Serene Santal was composed by Patty Hidalgo, a Vice President Perfumer at IFF with roughly three decades in fragrance. She came into perfumery through the laboratory rather than through perfumery school, studying biology and chemistry and moving from technical work into creation — a path that tends to produce perfumers with a close understanding of how materials behave, not only how they smell.

Her commercial portfolio is broad, covering briefs for LVMH, Estée Lauder, Coty and Escada among others. Serene Santal is the only fragrance of hers we carry, and it is the most restrained thing in the June Thirtieth range.

It is also the house's best formulation score: June Thirtieth publishes a green-chemistry figure for each release, a measure of how much of a formula comes from processes designed to reduce waste and hazardous inputs, and Serene Santal reaches 97.5% against 82% for Vanilla's Muse.

Who It's For

For people who want a sandalwood that is not a gourmand and not a Mysore tribute. The orris and cardamom give it a cool, composed quality that most modern santals abandon in favour of creamy sweetness.

It suits wearers who already like orris and sandalwood compositions, and anyone looking for a woody fragrance with real polish rather than volume. If you found OG too sweet or Vanilla's Muse too warm, this is the one in the range to try.

Unisex, and the house states it explicitly. The dry woody structure is traditionally coded masculine and the orris and magnolia pull it firmly back to neutral.

When To Wear It

Autumn and winter suit it best — Fragrantica's seasonal voting puts fall first and winter second — but the airy note and cardamom keep it from ever feeling heavy, so it stays wearable in milder weather.

It works across the day, which is uncommon for a woody of this depth: restrained enough for an office, composed enough for a dinner or a formal evening. Projection is moderate and it settles close to the skin after the first hour.

About The House

June Thirtieth is a New York house whose first three eaux de parfum — OG, Vanilla's Muse and Serene Santal — make up Vol. 1. All three are composed by IFF perfumers and sold in 50 ml bottles at $230.

The house identity is built around contrast rather than a single signature material. In Serene Santal the contrast is dry against creamy: cardamom, olibanum and cypriol set against sandalwood, vanilla bean and rum. Browse the rest of the range in the June Thirtieth collection at Redolia.

Updated October 2026