When it comes to American Independent Perfumery I think I am on the wrong coast. Over the past few years all of the most exciting new independent perfumers call the western half of the country home. As a result, especially with indie brands, a buzz starts to build and it takes a while for these perfumes to make it to the East Coast. Late last year I began to hear about a perfumer by the name of Sam Rader who was working on a quartet of perfumes around the holidays. Then early this year I heard that four proposed perfumes had become one. I also heard that this perfume was one of the best pine tree perfumes my source had ever smelled. Now my patience has paid off as Ms. Rader has finally found a place for her perfume Dasein Winter, on the East Coast.
Ms. Rader is an interesting pastiche of influences. The name of her brand Dasein (pronounced DAH-zyne) comes from her study of existential philosophy and defines a “human being as the marriage between self-awareness and sensual experience.” At least according to her website. I read this that she wants Dasein perfumes to awaken the inner self completely. With Winter Ms. Rader has chosen an iconic smell of the winter months to build a perfume around, that of fir trees. Also according to the website she sourced a specific forest pine essential oil from the Austrian Alps. What has always been a recurring theme when writing about my favorite indie perfumers are these small batches of exquisite ingredients they can use to build a perfume around. This pine tree essential oil is every bit of the tree; needles, bark, sap- everything. It rings with authenticity synthetics just can’t replicate.
Sam Rader
Dasein Winter opens with that pine essential oil out in front. If you’ve ever gone to a Christmas tree lot to buy a tree you know what this smells like. The richness of the needles, the slightly camphoraceous smell of the trunk, and the woody quality of the branches.. I think I would be thrilled with the essential oil all by itself. Ms. Rader recognizes she has a jewel of a raw material here and so she is very careful to swaddle it in a few well-thought out notes. Early on a bit of spruce keeps your attention on the tree itself. Later on a beautiful whisper of black cardamom wreathes the pine with garlands of warmth. Lavender absolute is the final piece of Winter and it provides a soft sweet place for this mighty conifer to rest.
Dasein Winter has 12-14 hour longevity and modest sillage. For as powerful as this is up close it projects surprisingly little.
With this first effort Ms. Rader has shown a precocious talent that leaves me anticipating her next release which I hear is Spring and will be out early in 2015. Until them I will happily become a pine tree hugger as I anoint myself with Winter throughout the end of this year.
Disclosure: This review was based on a sample I purchased from Twisted Lily.
–Mark Behnke
