Perfume for Good Luck: 5 Secret Ingredients
By Kershen Teo | Founder & Perfumer, Prosody London
At a Glance: The idea of a “lucky” perfume isn’t superstition — it’s cultural history. Across Hindu, Egyptian, and indigenous American traditions, certain botanical ingredients were consistently used in ritual, ceremony, and daily spiritual practice. Here are five of them, and why I chose each one for Santal Foy- tne perfume for good luck.
The concept of perfume for good luck is older than perfumery itself. Long before fragrance was worn for pleasure, it was used to communicate intention — to deities, to the cosmos, to oneself. Every ingredient burned in a temple or worn on the body was chosen deliberately, and many of the same botanical materials keep reappearing across cultures that had no contact with each other.
That consistency tells you something. These aren’t arbitrary associations. They’re the result of thousands of years of experimentation with how scent changes the human experience.
I’m not making metaphysical claims here. What I can tell you — as a working perfumer who uses only botanical ingredients — is that these five materials are real, complex, and demonstrably different from synthetic approximations. Whether they “attract luck” is for you to decide. What I know is that they’ve been trusted for that purpose across centuries of human history, and they are genuinely remarkable raw materials.
Sandalwood: Sacred and Grounding
Its importance and usage are recorded in the Vedas, Puranas, and Ayurvedic texts including the Charaka Samhita — it has been used in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain ritual for over 4,000 years. In Hindu practice specifically, it is applied as paste to temple deities, burned as incense in ceremony, and used to anoint the body. The essential oil of Santalum album has a documented history in perfumery, medicine, and religious practice spanning millennia.
The specific oil we use in Santal Foy is aged Mysore sandalwood (Santalum album), sourced from a British wholesaler who batch-tests for purity and adulteration. That last point matters more than it might seem. East Indian sandalwood in commercial markets is highly prone to adulteration — with substitute species, synthetic santalols, or low-grade oils from other Santalum varieties. True aged Mysore sandalwood is softer, creamier, and more persistent than Australian sandalwood (S. spicatum), which has a sharper, more astringent profile. It also achieves markedly longer skin retention.
In fragrance terms, sandalwood is a fixative. It extends the life of everything around it by slowing evaporation. Spiritually, virtually every tradition that used it called it grounding and protective — an anchor.
Why Sandalwood Attracts Good Luck
Sandalwood is one of the oldest traded commodities in the world — and one of the most spiritually consistent. Across Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Ayurvedic traditions, it was used to invite divine alignment, purify spaces, and ground the individual in positive intention.
Carrot Seed: Underestimated, Earthy, Regenerative
Carrot seed (Daucus carota) is one of the more underused oils in natural perfumery and one of my personal favourites. It has an earthy, slightly warm character — rooty rather than obviously floral or woody. In folk herbalism across Europe and Asia, carrot seed was associated with cleansing, transition, and new beginnings.
Formulaically, it adds unusual depth in the mid-register. It also has good fixative properties and blends well with heavier base notes. I use it in Santal Foy to introduce a natural earthiness that keeps the sandalwood from reading as simply sweet.
Orange Blossom: Clarity and Lightness
Citrus aurantium blossoms — the source of neroli oil and orange flower absolute — appear in the bridal traditions of multiple cultures simultaneously: Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, South Asian. The association is consistent: new beginnings, optimism, purification of the past.
Orange blossom absolute has a notably complex aromatic profile. GC/MS analysis identifies dozens of constituents, with linalool, linalyl acetate, limonene, farnesol, and nerolidol among the dominant compounds. The effect in a blend is brightness and lift. In Santal Foy it opens the fragrance before the deeper base notes come forward. This is also a material where natural versus synthetic is immediately apparent to a trained nose — synthetic neroli loses the subtle honeyed, slightly green character that makes the real thing so distinctive.
Why Orange Blossom Attracts Good Luck
Consistently across cultures, orange blossom signals a threshold moment — the beginning of something new. In the formula it performs the same function: it opens everything up.
Tonka: Coumarin, Warmth, and Ancient Luck Traditions
Tonka bean (Dipteryx odorata) comes from South America, where it has been used in folk practice as a good-luck charm — carried in pockets, tucked into clothing, used in ritual. It made its way into European perfumery in the 19th century and became foundational to the oriental and fougère families.
The dominant compound is coumarin, which gives tonka its characteristic scent: warm vanilla, almond, a faint tobacco edge, sweet hay. Coumarin is also found naturally in lavender, sweet clover, and woodruff — it’s a widespread botanical molecule, which is why tonka blends easily with so many other materials. In Santal Foy it adds warmth and smoothness to the base.
I should note: we use tonka absolute in small concentration. Coumarin is an IFRA-restricted material with category-specific limits in leave-on products, and we formulate within those limits.
Why Tonka Attracts Good Luck
The luck association with tonka is old and specific — it was literally carried as a charm. The coumarin molecule that defines its scent is warm, enveloping, and magnetic. In a blend it draws everything together.
Myrrh: Ancient Purification, Modern Fixative
Myrrh (Commiphora myrrha) is a resin tapped from a thorny tree native to the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. It has been used throughout history in incense and perfume, and since Biblical times for the treatment of wounds. Its protective and purifying associations span Egyptian embalming, Jewish temple incense, Ayurvedic medicine, and Christian liturgy — making it one of the most universally attested ritual materials in the world.
As a perfumery material, myrrh resinoid is one of the most effective natural fixatives available. Its substantivity — the technical term for how well a material clings to skin and fabric — is exceptional. It extends the longevity of a formula significantly, which is part of why Santal Foy achieves the 8–10 hour wear time we get without any synthetic musks or phthalate-based fixatives. The scent itself is earthy, slightly bitter, warm — it rounds off sharp edges in a blend and adds a certain gravitas to the dry-down.
Why Myrrh Attracts Good Luck
Myrrh’s purification associations are among the oldest in human culture. If good luck requires clearing what no longer serves you, myrrh has been the tool of choice for thousands of years — and as a fixative, it ensures that clearing effect lasts.
Santal Foy- the perfume for good Luck: The Formulation
Santal Foy brings these five ingredients together with additional botanical materials into what I consider one of our most successful blends. The brief I set myself was: a perfume that feels ancient without being heavy; sacred without being incense-like; lucky in the most grounded sense — the kind of day when you feel fully yourself, clear-headed, present.
The Mysore sandalwood is the dominant note and the structural core. The orange blossom opens it. Carrot seed and myrrh anchor the middle and base. Tonka smooths everything into a coherent whole.
Because our Mysore sandalwood stock is finite and I am not confident we can source at the same quality again, Santal Foy is limited edition. When the oil is gone, the formula as it currently exists cannot be reproduced exactly.
If you want to try it before committing to a full bottle, our sample set includes a 2ml vial.
If you’re drawn to the prosperity side of this, we’ve written separately on perfume that attracts money and perfume for abundance.
