Daily soap since 1916

Mysore Sandal Soap, which proudly bears a GI (geographical indication) tag, is one of Karnataka’s most iconic products. DH's Asra Mavad visits the government-run soap factory in Bengaluru to understand the soap’s enduring appeal.

When you walk into the factory outlet of Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Limited (KSDL) in Bengaluru’s Yeshwanthpur, a gentle fragrance greets you. For many, it is the fragrance of nostalgia. The earthy, woody and sweet notes of Mysore Sandal Soap can’t be mistaken for anything else.

The outlet is lined with products from the 108-year-old brand, ranging from incense sticks to multipurpose cleaners. Yet, most customers walk in only for one product: the ever-familiar Mysore Sandal Soap.

On an overcast Wednesday afternoon in November, when I walked in, I saw a 61-year-old pick up two packs of three soaps. “It’s the only soap I have ever used. My mother would use it too and it reminds me of her every time I smell it. Now even my grandchildren use it,” he said with a smile. I also saw two friends in their mid-thirties buying the soap in bulk. It was for a friend’s wedding. “We are creating a hamper for the wedding guests. We thought this would be an appropriate local add-on,” one explained.

I remember travel lodges run by the state government keeping a mini bar of the sandal soap in the bathroom — that’s where I saw it for the first time as a 10-year-old. I am 26 now. A significant number of Mysore Sandal Soap users are above 35, Karnataka’s industry minister M B Patil would later tell me.

You find notes of sandalwood in some of the world’s most popular perfumes — Tom Ford’s Santal Blush, Louis Vuitton’s Au Hasard, and Chanel’s Coco Eau de Parfum, to name a few. While these perfumes are
sold at prices upwards of Rs 20,000, a 75 gm bar of Mysore Sandal Soap makes the prized fragrance available for an affordable Rs 42. 

At the store, a salesman tried to sell me a more recent product by the brand — the Mysore Sandal Millennium soap. The fragrance and price of a sandalwood product can differ greatly based on its formulations. This one contains five times more sandalwood oil than the regular soap, and is thus priced at Rs 810 for a 150 gm bar. I politely declined and settled for the old-school sandal soap, besides a less pricey new product, a foaming body wash.

Factory visit

In 2006, Mysore Sandal Soap earned a GI (geographical indication) tag.

Growing up, I used to be obsessed with the documentary series ‘How It’s Made’. It showed what goes on behind the scenes in factories that produce everything from ice cream to mobile phones. I was, thus, thrilled to be visiting the government soap factory in Yeshwanthpur.

The Soap Division of KSDL’s factory is spread over 2.7 acres. It is divided into 11 sections — two automatic and nine semi-manual. Each section can produce up to 300 soaps per minute. Speaking of Mysore Sandal Soap alone, the factory can churn out up to 18 lakh units a day.

As soon as I stepped into the manufacturing unit, the familiar fragrance hit me. This time, it had a hint of metal. The place was loud. Hundreds of employees were busy, so busy that no one noticed a non-employee on the shop floor.

Nagaraj, assistant manager (production), was to give me a tour of the factory. The sandal soap is made with the same basic ingredients as any other soap —fats and oils, water, essential oils, fragrance and colourants. When these are mixed, soap is formed by a process called saponification. What makes Mysore Sandal Soap unique is the natural sandalwood oil mixed into this blend.

Soap noodles are mixed with glycerin, colourants, sandalwood oil and perfumes.

Pre-mixed unscented soap noodles are used as a base for making the sandal soap. Think of them as tiny pellets of soap. These are mixed with glycerin, colourants, sandalwood oil, and a blend of perfumes formulated by KSDL’s R&D department. Each mixing machine can hold between 100 and 400 kg of the ingredients.

The mixture gets shaped into elongated bars after plodding and milling.

Once the mixture is homogeneous, it passes through the plodder and the milling machine before getting shaped into elongated bars. These bars then enter the cutting machine where they are cut into oval shapes and the Sharabha symbol is imprinted on them. The Sharabha is a creature from Hindu mythology. It symbolises wisdom and strength. After stamping the soaps, a conveyor belt sends the residual pieces back to the mixer for further use.

Now the bars are cut into oval shapes and they are stamped with the Sharabha symbol

In the packaging section, workers were seated on either side of long tables. A conveyor belt ran between them, carrying freshly stamped (and warm to the touch) soaps in an endless line. They were picking up a bar of soap each from the conveyor belt, wrapping it in plastic, and then packing it in the trademark red and green cardboard boxes.

Each bar of soap is automatically covered in a plastic wrapper

Other workers were loading the packed soaps into big cartons, readying them for a journey across the world.

Approximately 81% of the company’s sales come from the southern Indian states. Interestingly, Karnataka is not the biggest consumer of Mysore Sandal Soap. It is the Telugu states followed by Tamil Nadu. Karnataka comes third. Despite attempts to penetrate other markets, the soap’s loyalty remains highest in these states because of cultural affinity, Patil explained. KSDL’s marketing efforts have also historically focused on the region.

The staff pack the wrapped soap in the trademark red and green cardboard boxes

Soap Shastry

Everything from the oval-shaped soap to the exquisitely designed packaging box is credited to the vision of Indian chemist Sosale Garalapury Shastry. Historian Suresh Moona said, “Back then, most soaps were either round or rectangular. He chose the oval shape for the sandal soap to make it stand out.” For Shastry, the soap was like a jewel, a piece of luxury, considering it was made with one of the world’s most expensive oils. He designed the packaging box to look like a jewellery case. He adorned it with vines and flowers along the edges, a nod to the dense forests of the erstwhile princely state of Mysore. The red and pink colours added to the royal touch. “He wanted each soap to be wrapped in tissue, like jewellery,” he said.

Stuck consignment

It is believed that Shastry learned the technique of soapmaking from a Christian priest in England. He was sent there by the maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV and his dewan Sir M Visvesvaraya. 

In the early 1900s, the lore goes, a foreign guest gifted the maharaja a pack of soaps made with sandalwood oil from Mysore. “This sparked the maharaja’s interest in making use of the tree growing abundantly in his backyard. Until then only the royals and the elite were using sandalwood oil in the form of perfume and medicine. Now he wanted to make it available to the general public. That is when he and Visvesvaraya decided to send Shastry to London,” said Prashanth P K M, managing director, KSDL.

However, Moona links the birth of the Mysore Sandal Soap to World War I. Native to south India, Santalum album or Indian sandalwood had been used around the world not just for medicine but also for carving.

“Mysore was the largest producer of sandalwood in the world in the early 1900s. Our sandalwood oil was known to be of the finest quality. But due to the war, a large shipment of sandalwood, meant for Europe, got stuck here. So Visvesvaraya, who was then emphasising on the industrial development of the princely state, decided to use the stock to produce a good-quality soap for the general public,” Moona said.

Visvesvaraya invited a chemist from Bombay (now Mumbai) and made arrangements for him to work at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. “At the same time, he involved a young scientist, S G Shastry. As time passed, Shastry took the project forward,” he added.

In 1916, the Mysore government opened a soap manufacturing unit in Bangalore, near K R Circle, and a factory to distil sandalwood oil in Mysore was opened soon after. In 1957, the manufacturing plant moved to a bigger plot in Rajajinagar, part of which went on to become the Yeshwanthpur Industrial Suburb later.

The Soap Division of KSDL’s factory is spread over 2.7 acres

Moona credits the popularity of the soap to advertising strategies adopted by the Mysore government. “Leading newspapers in the country ran half-page advertisements. Neon signs promoting the soap were installed across major cities in India and even abroad. In Karachi, a camel procession was taken out to draw attention to it. The Mysore Sandal Soap soon became a household name, making many British soap manufacturers envious. They would call it the ‘My-sore’ soap,” he said with a chuckle.

Mafia scare

Sandalwood is among the most expensive woods. Currently, a 1 kg of sandalwood costs about Rs 1.97 lakh, excluding taxes. The tree has, thus, led to mafia wars and smuggling. Remember the Veerappan saga? The notorious Indian gangster and poacher was active in the forests of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala. He was infamous for trading ivory and sandalwood.

However, it is not the whole tree that is valuable. Only heartwood — the dark-coloured dense inner part of the tree trunk — is prized. It grows down till the roots. A 100 kg of sandalwood can produce about 4.5 kg of oil.

KSDL sources sandalwood from Marayur in Kerala. Illegal felling and smuggling have led to shortage of sandalwood in Karnataka. Previously, KSDL would also import sandalwood oil from Australia. In recent years, Australia has begun growing Indian sandalwood. Of the roughly 10 sandalwood species found worldwide, the Indian and Australian species are the most sought after. Among the two, the Indian species has a longer-lasting fragrance and is regarded as more premium.

Karnataka has tried to encourage sandalwood farming through initiatives like ‘Grow More Sandalwood’. However, many shy away, as it attracts poachers and also because it takes 20 to 30 years for a tree to mature.

No entry

The oil distillery in Mysuru is currently out of sandalwood, I was told. The distillation will resume in January with the procurement of a fresh batch. Extracting oil from the wood is time-consuming. The first step is identifying the heartwood and separating it from the surrounding layer of sapwood. In some varieties, the heartwood and sapwood grow into each other, creating a marbled pattern.

The extracted heartwood is sent through a wood chipper to be broken into smaller chips. After stray pieces of sapwood are removed, the chips are turned to a fine powder, after which the distillation begins. The oil is separated from water and purified until it is ready to use. It takes about a week to produce 1 kg of oil. The sawdust left behind during the process is turned into incense products.

The sandalwood oil is dispatched to KSDL’s perfume lab in Bengaluru. I was given a tour of the same by Chidananda N, assistant manager (R&D/Perfume).

The lab has a reserve of 1,800 kg of sandalwood oil. It is precious, as you might expect. The oil is safely hidden away inside a vault, guarded by a big blue door. Currently, 1 kg of sandalwood oil can cost anywhere from Rs 2.7 lakh to Rs 3.7 lakh. 

Loyal club

Despite stiff competition from multinational soap makers, KSDL made a record sales turnover of Rs 1,500 crore in March 2024 — the highest in four decades. According to Patil, diversifying the product portfolio and improving marketing channels are paying dividends. In 2018, KSDL started making soaps with fragrances like rose and jasmine. They additionally make cologne soaps, sambrani (incense) cups, talcum powders, a liquid handwash, and a detergent.

The business numbers may fluctuate but the loyalty to the sandal soap remains steady. A Jayanagar resident in his 60s has used the soap all his life. “Many brands have changed scents and formulas over the years but
Mysore Sandal Soap has remained the same. It can always be trusted,” he said.

The loyalty has transcended nationalities. Popular lore suggests that the soap was a favourite of Queen Victoria. Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar, scion of the erstwhile Wadiyar dynasty and member of Lok Sabha, told me about an MP in the House of Lords who uses this soap. “He had never been to Mysuru. He knew little to nothing about the state’s history. But he was very fond of the soap,” he shared.

The soap has a peculiar use-case in my household — my mother uses it after cleaning and cooking meat or fish. “It gets rid of the lingering smell. Never disappoints,” she said.

When tourists choose Mysore Sandal Soap as a souvenir to take home, there is a reason. It is a piece of Karnataka, and its fragrance reminds you of everything that is elegant about the state. As Kuvempu aptly wrote ‘Bhudeviya makutada navamaniye, gandhada chandada honnina ganiye’. It translates to: A new jewel in the crown of Goddess Earth, You are a trove of sandalwood, beauty and gold.

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