Winter Nights – dark and aromatic and woody

Photo: perfumeniche

We have close friends who live in a remote part of the east coast of Vancouver Island, in a pine forest near the ocean. Their house is big, high-ceilinged, full of light from large picture windows, with bare-wood walls, hardwood floors, and a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace in the living room. It’s the kind of house that’s rustic and sophisticated at the same time. I love how it’s open and airy in the summer when we live outside and warm and cozy in the winter.

It’s a special place for me, and when I smelled Winter Nights by Dasein for the first time, I was taken back to those winter nights on Vancouver Island. Long walks along the ocean, or in the pine forest, then later sitting on leather couches with tufted high-rolled arms, swaddled cozy throws, watching the firelight’s flickering shadow on the walls, scotch in hand, talking into the wee hours. It’s a cocoon of warmth, camaraderie, and contentment that comes from being with friends with deep roots.

Winter Nights is the result of a collaboration between perfumers Josh Meyer of Imaginary Authors and Samantha Radar for her American-based indie brand Dasein (pronounced DAH-zyne) Fragrances. All the fragrances in the line are cruelty-free, vegan and hand-blended in small batches. Ms. Rader’s first scent, Winter, launched in 2013 and quickly became a cult favourite that was very hard to get a hold of. Winter Nights, a flanker to Winter, was launched in 2016 as a limited edition of 400 bottles. Darker, deeper and more concentrated, Winter Nights was another home run. It sells out within minutes every year, so it took me a few years on the waiting list to finally get a bottle. Was it worth waiting for? Absolutely.

On me, it opens with the heady, aromatic smell of a pine forest. I smell the clean, sharp scent of fir, spruce, cedar, and pine needles, mingling with the deep, resinous scent of sap. It’s fresh, invigorating and immersive. There’s a hint of saltness in the air here, too, that evokes the smell of the ocean in the distance. As it blooms, the resins soften, and the smell of smouldering dry wood wafts into the forest. A note of cardamom tea blends the warm spiciness of cardamom with the comforting aroma of tea, evoking a sense of familiarity and tranquillity. Cardamom has a camphoraceous facet that pairs with a note of herbaceous, heady lavender that keeps Winter Nights fresh and invigorating at the base, where warm, earthy, woody, wild musk lends depth and sensuality.

Winter Nights dries down to the woody, dark, aromatic scent of a pine forest that smells so natural and real, it has become the benchmark for forest-themed fragrances.  I know it’s one of my favourite forest scents.

For many people, it evokes memories of Christmastime. But this beautifully crafted fragrance is so much more than that. It’s the smell of the pleasures of winter, like time spent with good friends.

Check out Winter Nights in our Shop.