D4 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2018

C M Y K Nxxx,2018-12-20,D,004,Bs-4C,E1

“I bloom indoors in the winter like a forcedforsythia,” the author and naturalist AnnieDillard wrote in 1973. “I come in to comeout.”

Winter, as a season, is all about being in-side — physically and metaphorically. It isabout regrouping, hunkering down, search-ing internally for inspiration. Fragrance isall about bottling our deepest desires andselling them right back to us; and this sea-son, people very much want to smell liketimber and bonfires. They want perfumesthat not only bloom indoors but smell likethe inside of a cozy wooden house.

Log Cabin Perfumes, as I have taken tocalling the growing category of scents thatevoke a cold snap all year round, are fairlynew to the market. A decade ago, only a fewniche fragrances prominently featurednotes like Scotch pine, birch tar, gunpowder,palo santo and wood smoke. In 2009, SergeLutens released Fille en Aiguilles, a cult hitthat smells like a Christmas tree farm, andslowly the hibernal trend began to tricklethrough the indie perfume world. Now, thedemand for wearable wintry mixes has ex-ploded.

“These scents are experiencing a re-newal and will be with us for some time,”said John Biebel, the perfumer behind theindie fragrance house January ScentProject. “It’s a bit of escapism, but actuallyto many it may be a desire to return to ‘real’life, full of unfiltered smells of the forest, themountains, the freshly cracked woodbranch and pine cones underfoot.”

Mr. Biebel’s newest scent, Burvuvu, is awonderfully complex marriage of two dif-ferent types of cedar (the dry, dusty Virgin-ia varietal and the sweeter, milkier red ce-dar) as well as tree lichen and an unexpect-ed note of wild mushrooms. The resultsmells like an antique wooden chest filledwith muddy soil.

Cedar is a common theme among LogCabin scents. Cedarise, a new scent fromthe Parisian house Hermetica, contains cy-press, vetiver root and the slightest citrussqueeze of pink grapefruit. Bois Sikar, thelatest release from Atelier des Ors, anotherParisian line, layers nutmeg and gooeystyrax resin atop a base of cedar leaves,which lends the entire composition the ex-act scent of a glass of overly peated single-malt Scotch.

No two Log Cabin scents smell alike —they invoke more of a mood board (chilly,smoky, ponderous) than a cohesive olfac-tory profile. What they have in common isthat they tend to be woody, unisex and verystrong. Mr. Biebel attributes this aromaticexcess to the way skin reacts to perfume inlow temperatures.

“Heavier and smokier scents evaporateslower off our skin in winter because ourskin is much colder,” he said. “In summer,this would all happen too quickly. Winter al-lows us to breathe in resins and smokinessat a trickle, which has a beautiful hauntingquality.”

Franco Wright, the co-founder of the pop-ular Los Angeles boutique Scent Bar andthe online retailer Luckyscent, has seen ademand for perfumes that smell like beingswaddled in lumberjack flannel, even in acity that stays balmy all year round. “By re-minding us of simpler times and pleasures,even the most powerfully rugged winterscents can gift us a feeling of extreme cozi-ness,” he said.

Simple pleasures are part of the Log Cab-

in scent allure. They encourage us to slowdown and breathe deeply. Many containgreen, herbal notes that can induce a cam-phorous, cleansing feeling. This year, thegothic perfume house Sixteen92 in Dallasreleased the Fall of the House of Usher, ascent that is so rich with pine and fir needlesthat it can clear your sinuses.

The Brooklyn house D.S. & Durga foundinspiration in medicinal woods for the newAmber Kiso, which, according to the co-founder David Moltz, contains “an old worldbase of vanilla and myrrh and holy Japa-nese woods, like hinoki and maple, the kindthat ritual samurai would rub on theirblades.”

Smudge, a new scent from Heretic, a NewYork line founded by Douglas Little, whoalso happens to be the nose behind Gwyn-eth Paltrow’s Goop perfumes, takes the con-cept of winter cleansing to a near literal lev-el. The star of the perfume is an overdose of

white sage, which when combined with lab-danum, juniper and violet leaf, smells like aheady incense that one might burn to purifytheir home (or cabin).

If there is one Log Cabin scent that trulyexemplifies the category, in that it smellslike a snow globe crunched into a bottlealong with candy canes and firewood, it isDasein’s Winter, which has gained a truecult following over the last five years.

The perfumer, Samantha Rader, whoworks as a psychology clinic director in LosAngeles when she isn’t blending scents athome, wanted to make a fragrance that“smells like Christmas, but is a perennial.”She settled on an icy cocktail of Scotch pine,blue spruce, French lavender and black car-damom, which she began selling in 2013 atjust three local boutiques. Ms. Rader sold100 bottles of Winter in less than a week andsuddenly had more orders than she couldfill.

“There is a whole back-to-the-earthmovement going on with the aesthetic eliteright now — potato sack dresses, neutralcolors, less grooming,” Ms. Rader said.“People want the perfume equivalent ofslow cooking.”

At first, in order to fill the huge demandfor Winter and still keep her day job, Ms.Rader decided she would release the scentonly once a year, from October to January,in a limited batch. She has kept the traditiongoing, even as she started selling in 80stores. She wants Winter to feel special, likea sacred holiday happening. The perfumeregularly sells out every year, and when it isgone, it is gone.

“I get emails all year long for it,” Ms.Rader said. “People saying they will paytriple if I make them a bottle. I’m touched.But the fact that they can only get it whenthe scent of pine is in the air is part of themagic.”

SKIN DEEP

Get That Fireside Aroma, No Fireside Needed

Log Cabin Perfumes: There’s an allure to scents that bring to mind the inside of a cozy home or maybe the night air a few yards back from a roaring bonfire.

SAMUEL BRISTOW FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The demand for scents thatevoke extreme coziness is now,you might say, blazing.

‘There is a whole back-to-the-earth movement going onwith the aesthetic elite right now. People want theperfume equivalent of slow cooking.’

By RACHEL SYME

“This is my first interview in nearly 10years,” David Lee Roth said one recentmorning.

Mr. Roth, Van Halen’s frontman, has hadhis trademark mane shorn to a bleach-blond crop, but neither time nor the long in-terval between interviews has mellowedhim much. He shoulder-shimmied in themiddle of Harry Cipriani and, in short order,suggested shots of Patrón.

Specifically, Mr. Roth had come to talkabout his newly introduced skin care line,called Ink the Original, which was createdfor people with tattoos. He came up with theidea himself, he said — a passion projectborn of his dissatisfaction with the optionsin the marketplace.

And though he tends to vacillate betweenpithy slogans (“tattoos make the sidewalkmuch more entertaining,” he said) and me-andering anecdotes (his time as an E.M.T.in New York City in the 1990s contributed towho he is today, he said), it turns out thatMr. Roth is a man with fearsome focus.

He worked with labs on various formula-tions to develop the products that make upthe Ink line: an SPF stick ($28); an SPFspray ($24 and up); and a tattoo-brighten-ing balm with vitamin C ($40). Moreover, heobsessed over the utilitarian packaging andclear satin finish, in part because of hisstickler of a mother.

“When we were little kids, my sister and Iwould come up with a drawing,” he recalled.“Mom wouldn’t even look up, but she’d say,‘Should I go get the magnet?’ That meantwas the drawing good enough for the refrig-erator, or were we going to waste her time?

Right there, you’d look at the drawing andsay, ‘I can edit!’”

Mom issues aside, Mr. Roth also showed asurprisingly practical side. “If you usesomething with an oil base, it’s going to re-flect back in your eyes,” he said, noting thatpeople with a tattoo want to show off theirink, not blind viewers with oily sunscreen.

The side grips on the packaging? So youcan easily pull out the SPF stick and use itwhen you’re rock-climbing, another DavidLee Roth pastime.

He even thought about how the tough-looking packaging might appeal to powerwomen: “Tina Fey can take this out of herbag at a full table of the most stellar, dynam-ic wits in the business. She takes this out ofher bag, and the guys will want to borrow it.”(Ms. Fey has no visible tattoos.)

Mr. Roth has tattoos all over. While livingin Japan in 2013 and 2014, he became thor-

oughly engrossed in the culture. He tookdaily language lessons and spent almost300 hours getting tattooed with Kabukimasks and traditional Japanese artwork.Tattoos cover his chest, upper arms andback.

“I don’t want to tell you how much I spenton my tattoos at $300 an hour,” he said. (Atthose prices, assuming no bulk discounts,the damage would have been close to$90,000.) His products must safeguard hisinvestment. They are, he said, “designed toprotect a Rembrandt, really.”

Mr. Roth would prefer to distance himselffrom “cheesy” celebrity lines, he said. Tothat end, he is adding tattoo-world cred tothe brand through Ami James, a “MiamiInk” tattoo artist who has signed on as Ink’sbrand architect. Mr. James will be develop-ing all content and marketing, as well asconsulting on product development.

“I think the products basically speak forthemselves,” said Mr. James, who is also thefounder of Tattoodo, an online tattoo direc-tory with 2.2 million followers on Insta-gram. “We never approached our workingtogether because we both have this notori-ety. No, the product has to be right. It has tobe nourishing to the skin, safe for the envi-ronment and dry clear.”

So those hoping to get a glimpse of Mr.Roth’s extensive tattoos will be disap-pointed. “I’m a little bit of a reveal, andthat’s it,” he said, almost demurely. He liftedup his shirt sleeve for a peek, but nothingmore.

If he showed his ink all the time, he said,“someone would always ask, ‘Did it hurt?’You never, ever want to say it did becausethen someone will use that opportunity tosay, ‘Why would you ever do that to your-self?’ Your answer? ‘The same reason youpierce your ears, darling.’ Pass the Patrón.”

Dry Ink? A Rocker Comes to the RescueDavid Lee Roth of Van Halen sells products for tattooed skin.

By BEE SHAPIRO

David Lee Roth, left, the lead singer in the bandVan Halen, has created skin care products forpeople with tattoos, Ink the Original, above.

DOLLY FAIBYSHEV FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES; PHOTOGRAPHED AT THE PRESS LOUNGE

TONY CENICOLA/THE NEW YORK TIMES