Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
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Raktacandana is the deep red heartwood of the tree Pterocarpus santalinus, best known in English as red sandalwood or red sanders. In Ayurveda it is ground into a paste or powder and used mainly on the skin, and sometimes taken by mouth as a cooling drug for heat, thirst and rashes.
It is a single drug, not a mixture. Despite the name, it is not the same plant as white sandalwood (Santalum album), and it has almost no scent. The wood is prized for its colour, which comes from red pigments in the heartwood.
Here is the plain verdict. Raktacandana has a long and clear record in classical Indian medicine, but that record is not proof that it works. We could find no published human trials of it, so its benefits in people remain untested.
Nobody has shown how Raktacandana works in the human body, and the ideas below are unproven.
In Ayurveda it is classed as a cooling, drying drug used to settle pitta, the body heat principle. That is a traditional idea, not a measured effect.
Lab work on extracts of the wood points to antioxidant activity (mopping up unstable molecules) and some anti-inflammatory action in cells and in rats. Cell and animal results often fail to repeat in people, so treat them as a starting point only.
Raktacandana is sold in a few simple forms:
Billets or sticks of heartwood, rubbed with water on a stone to make a paste for the skin.
Fine powder (churna) for skin pastes, or mixed into water, milk or honey for internal use.
An ingredient in ready-made Ayurvedic creams, oils and compound powders.
A water infusion or decoction of the chips.
One warning about sourcing. The tree is endangered and protected by international trade rules, so genuine wood is scarce and fakes are common. Cheaper red woods such as Adenanthera pavonina and Caesalpinia sappan are often sold in its place.
Raktacandana is named in the classical Ayurvedic texts, including the Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita, where it appears in cooling formulas for bleeding, burning skin and fever. It was used in Siddha and Unani practice too, and the same wood is known in Chinese medicine as zi tan.
It has also been used for centuries as a dye for cloth and food colouring, and as a timber for carving and musical instruments.
See a doctor if your skin gets worse, or if the spot you are treating turns red, hot, swollen or starts leaking. Get help the same day if you have trouble breathing, swelling of the lips or face, or a rash that spreads fast, as this can be a serious allergic reaction.
Book an appointment if acne or a rash has not improved after about four weeks of use. Also see a doctor for ongoing thirst, unexplained bruising or bleeding, or any bleeding that does not stop, rather than treating it at home.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for Raktacandana is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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