 I got head. Prince has a song called Head. You ever heard that song? How's it go? Head till you're burning up Head till you get enough Head till your love is red Head love you till you're dead That's the chorus. Sounds like a good song. I can get behind. Jush! Welcome back to our show with Ray Gideon from Corbett I'm Ray. Instagram is in our Jusy Content. Follow us there, follow us there, follow us there! Hang ho, hang ho, hang ho! Remember the last time I did that when I made a stupid slurping sound? I went in my lungs. Favorite film you've seen this year? R.R Without Question. No, no, no. Not a new one. Just in general. R.R Without Question. No hesitation. That you would give an Oscar to? I'd nominate R.R for Best Picture Without Question. But for... Dummies when you're sinking, the best film of the year. R.R. Overall. Overall, R.R. is the best film of the year. You? I don't know. It's not R.R. I mean, that's the most enjoyable in terms of like, fun film. It's like a Marvel film. It's hard to beat. But no. No? Wouldn't be. Wouldn't even nominate it? No, I would. I wouldn't have a problem putting it in there. But you can't think of a one you would say that is... Well, I loved... There's just... I have got a lot of good films as well. Love Hostel was spectacular. Love Pika's film was great. Shafali, the Jaisa. Bahaddu. Yep. But I do... Absolutely. That would probably be overall. In terms of the new ones that came out this year. I love every one of those things. Every one of those films we watched. Bang, bang, bang. Loved every one of them. But nothing has touched R.R. In anything I've seen in American cinema anywhere. It's the best movie of the year. That's a great one, man. Yeah. For sure. Anyways, today we've got an informational reason why sandalwood is so expensive. You know sandalwood? Yep. It's a tree that's grown in a specific place. I didn't realize it was extremely expensive. Sandalwood? Yeah. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah. And it's only... I think it only comes from India, honestly. I think that's the only place you had to go. That, I think, I remember hearing. And I... What do you know? In Pushpa. Yep. Doing this thing. So sweet. I remember who it was, but there was a stupid baby that sent me a really long, extensive article about sandalwood and the... Because they took exception to our not liking Pushpa. And said, maybe this will help you appreciate more Pushpa's storyline of the sandalwood aspect. It didn't. Yeah. Sorry. Very sorry. That's okay, though. I'm glad you loved it. We don't want movies to be bad. Also you can have a different opinion than ours. Exactly. They are motion pictures. But if it's the opposite of my opinion, you're wrong. Here we go. That's a cool machine. This is one of the most expensive woods in the world. I'll give you some expensive. There's only one portion of a sandalwood log that makes it so valuable. To get to it, these men tirelessly travel away the lighter outer layer of sandalwood. Until they're left with bits. The dark inner core that makes a kilogram of Indian sandalwood cost $200 today. This is where sandalwood's unique fragrance comes from. And when it's distilled, it's used in all kinds of products, from bath soaps to luxury brand perfumes. So what makes sandalwood's aroma so special? Rarity. And is the way the wood is so expensive? Already, I can tell. Your mom knows about some expensive wood. Native to South India, Centalum album, or Indian sandalwood, was used for hundreds of years before becoming a go-to scent for expensive perfumes. It's also been used for wood carvings and medicine, and it's even considered a sacred tree in several religions. Once distilled, sandalwood's sweet woodsy aroma retains its scent for decades. Didn't know that. This is the crude oil portion. This we take separately and it is weighed and it is handed over to the stores department. After harvesting, the forestry department sells sandalwood at auction to factories like this one in Mysore. This is jichpokal class of sandalwood. We have received from Marayur in Kerala. This we are going to process next week. This is the wood. Hollow heartwood logs are classified as jichpokal, one of the 18 classes of Indian sandalwood. Factories can purchase pure heartwood like jichpokal or raw sandalwood logs. But if they buy the raw wood, they'll need to break down each log themselves. Although a machine helps split sandalwood into more manageable pieces, stripping the logs down to their heartwood core requires the effort of several employees. It is a totally manual process and a very skilled process. In a physically demanding process, these men chop each log to remove the sandalwood, the non-fragment portion of sandalwood. You can see the brown portion. This is hardwood. The outer portion is called sapwood and the exterior portion is barker. Pure heartwood is the most valuable class of sandalwood. In some trees, pure heartwood is easier to extract because it forms in one circle at the center. In other trees, the heartwood mixes together with sapwood, which impacts the final value of oil. This brown portion is hardwood and this white portion is sapwood. So it is mixed up both hardwood and sapwood. That's why it is called mixed wood. So it is a little bit inferior quality as regard to sandalwood and contents. After employees have gathered all they can, a machine breaks down the strips of wood into chips. Employees do a sift through these chips to grab any leftover pieces of usable hardwood. Then a separate machine turns those chips into powder. Now distillation can begin. The process is long and it starts with injecting steam into distillation stills. After the oil is extracted, all that's left are these giant mounds of powder. But even with most of the oil gone, some of the scent still lingers. Rather than going to waste, it's used to make incense sticks and do a common form of incense in India used during religious rituals. During the final stages, workers separate the oil from water and purify it until they're left with a totally clean tank of sandalwood oil. It takes Mahadeva's team about a week to distill one metric ton of oil. Tanks of the purified oil are sent to a lab in Bangaluru. Here, researchers test each batch for quality. They smell samples of the oil to confirm the aroma is consistent across batches. Sandalwood's unique and long-lasting scent makes it compatible with a wide range of other fragrances, which is why it's an ideal base for perfume. Sandalwood oil is a woody compound. It is a base compound. It longers around more than 24 hours. It is not like that orange oil or jasmine like. After the oil is tested, it heads to another factory where it will be used to make soap for Karnataka soap and detergents limited or KSDL. KSDL is one of the biggest producers of sandalwood oil products globally. Although its primary focus is soap, the company sells bottles into sandalwood oil too. One 10 gram bottle of sandalwood oil costs 5500 rupees or about $74. It is very expensive for the common people. It cannot afford to pay 3,000 rupees for 5 gram of sandalwood oil. In every auction, there used to be increase in the price of sandalwood. Maybe by 10-50% increase compared to previous prices. So when the sandalwood oil is used, it is very expensive. Compared to 2017, a kilogram of Indian sandalwood oil can cost double today. And demand isn't slowing down. With the market expected to reach over $165 million by 2027. At a profit of $1,000,000, the market expected to reach over $1,000,000. The market expected to reach over $1,000,000. At a profit of $165 million by 2027. Out of roughly 10 sandalwood species, Indian sandalwood and Australian sandalwood have the largest commercial value. The difference is the Indian species has higher levels of alpha and beta-santalol, the components in sandalwood responsible for its lasting scent and believed health benefits. India used to dominate the market for sandalwood oil and oil-based products. But in recent years, Australia, which grows both the Indian and Australian sandalwood species, has gained significant ground in the market. Although this might look like a lot of sandalwood, India is actually facing a supply shortage. In fact, the supply is so limited that this sandalwood distillery only operated for about four months in 2021. And up until 2002, it was illegal for private growers to plant sandalwood trees in the southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. With only a small amount of government-sanctioned replanting alongside the over-harvesting, India's supply has suffered. And since 2018, the species has been considered vulnerable, one level above endangered. Another factor that limits supply and increases the price is inherent to the way the tree grows. Older trees tend to yield more oil, which makes them preferable for oil production. Growers will typically wait around 20 years for a tree to mature. This waiting period doesn't only limit the quantity of sandalwood, it also puts the trees at risk. It's not the seasonal crop. It is a long-lasting crop. It needs variations to grow, and you need to protect it till its maturity. That is the one issue you have to bear in mind. Today, every tree has to be registered with the government and can't be harvested or transported without permission. But even these strict regulations aren't enough to prevent theft. According to Hinduism today, roughly 2,000 tons of smuggled sandalwood passed through the black market in 2018. Successfully grow the trees for decades, farmers must pay the cost to protect them. Here in the city of Mysore, some trees are wrapped in barbed wire. On top of this threat, harvesting these trees isn't simple. When a farmer has approval, a government official must come in person to uproot the entire tree. None of the trees should be wasted, particularly hardwood in the trunk and roots, since it holds the highest oil content. In the end, the tree's total oil output isn't much. So you may get around 60 grams of sandalwood out of 1 kg of root-pushed sandalwood. In case of stem, you may get around 40 grams to 50 grams. In branches, about 30 grams to 40 grams. To replenish some of its trees, the Karnataka State government created the Grow More Sandalwood program. Around 360 farmers are enrolled in our Grow More Sandal Project, and we're encouraging farmers to grow more and more sandalwood, and after minimum 14 years of age, we can buy back. But growing trees comes with the cost of protecting them for decades at a time, something that likely will still deter farmers. There are also the permissions farmers need from the government, which slow down the process. It's uncertain if programs like this can return India to its old production levels, but at a minimum, the effort might help restore some of the country's lost sandalwood supply. Wow, that was really informative. Yeah, I love these videos that we get to watch, because they're so informative and about an industry, usually in India that is hurting, because India has been around for less than 100 years, but it has been around for thousands of years. Known civilizations on the planet. So they've been doing this stuff for a long, long time. And also, if we ever, we've talked about it before, if we ever one day are working enough in Indian films, like we have steady work, we'd love to get a place in India, it's like we lived in India for a while. I would love to be able to do something like almost like Dirty Jobs does. Exactly. Going around. Go to them. Videos and one to promote, but also try, like, No. Help out for the day. Rather than watch an informational video, create one of our own in person and see these places. Absolutely. That's obviously a dream thing if we ever get to stay in India for an extended time. An extended time with our families, which I would love to be able to do one day. Yeah, me too. I think I'd be so cool to live in India for a substantial amount of time. Yeah. One, there's so many times. So many things you could do in, like, video-wise and just obviously work-wise. Interview-wise, work-wise. Yeah. Just hanging out with stupid babies. So, so much. So many different things. Yeah, this is like Imagine. Oh, we need to make another studio. Imagine our two-week trip turned into a, you know, six months. Yeah. It'd be amazing. But anyways, it would be, it's one of the dream projects. I don't know if we'll get to do it. I hope we will. Yeah. But it's stuff like this. I would love to be able to go to this place for a day or two and just do their job and, like, just cut the wood. Yeah, and then see what else you can do. Like, talk to the people, talk to the farmers and get some, the practical things and maybe through six degrees of separation, connect them to people who aren't connected, especially here in America. Like, there's so many things we've seen, like the making of the saris and other things where we could just make different connections to different people in ways then that expand the network out to people who can support them. So, great video. Yeah. Please let us know other informational videos that we can react to. Please, down below.