Jeke

Slumberhouse's ode to overindulgence. This is getting drunk and going to an all-night breakfast spot, sitting in the smoking section back when those still existed, and sparking up a good cigar with your 2 a.m. waffles. It also gives me a bit of a road-trip-through-the-south vibe as there's a sort of old country store aura about it. Candles in mason jars; biscuits being baked nearby; tobacco products, scented pillows, handmade soap, hand-whittled wood carvings; maple, cinnamon and caramel hard candies; pralines; etc. Probably Slumberhouse's "friendliest" scent, next to Mond. I'm a big fan, personally. One of the drawbacks I've encountered with Sumberhouse perfumes is that once I've bought a bottle, I can be a little reluctant to wear it because I don't want to run out and then have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get another one. With Jeke, however, that's not even remotely an issue because a little bit goes so far. Like others have mentioned, its performance is absolutely huge-- a half-spray is FINE with Jeke '22. I liken it a bit to Baruti's Perverso, but in a context where a better balance is struck. Unlike that scent, this one doesn't repel me in any way. Instead, here, the performance is something that I personally appreciate because I know my bottle will last a long time. I just apply cautiously. Preferences on that will vary, though. Note: What some others seem to be reading as curry just registers to me as dry, leafy tobacco, which is fortunate because I've been chased off from certain scents due to overly amped up curry or fenugreek notes. I honestly don't get curry at all here, but I see what people are talking about, if that makes sense. I think that aspect is just going to depend on personality. Lastly, I'll mention that while there's this sort of cringey cult of prestige surrounding the act of coming into possession of a Slumberhouse fragrance, I wouldn't call the scent profile of Jeke '22 particularly sophisticated. And sure, there's a rustic quality to all the Slumberhouse offerings, but Norne, Baque, Kiste, and even Sibet read to me as more dignified than this. Instead, Jeke '22 is more of a rootin' tootin' good time. It's less of a "look at my Ferrari" type scent than a "look at my badass truck with a lift and mud tires hauling a trailer with a jet ski and a four wheeler cuz u never know when you're gonna need both at the same time" type scent. Just something to keep in mind-- this perfume has a Hemi. In a nutshell, it's Slumberhouse's best bang-for-your-buck scent, best suited for cold months, and would work best for the kind of person who can appreciate a fine dining experience but who would still never turn their nose up at grabbing a meal at the Cracker Barrel.

This is the best tobacco scent I've come across - no small accomplishment in itself. But Jeke also happens to impressively merge a range of dry, earthy, resinous notes to create an aroma that is uniquely evocative of the Autumn in my mind's eye - I'm reminded of cool October days in the Midwest and the smell of burning leaves in the distance... I've never smoked or really used tobacco products much at all, but I've always been drawn to the aromas of good cigars, pipe tobacco, and clove cigarettes. Recreating those aromas in fragrance is apparently a bit tricky. I've worn SL Chergui off-and-on for several years, but have often found it to be just a tad too sweet. Tauer's L'Air du Desert Marocain is a work of art, but it is just a little too amber-centric for me. Jil Sander's Scent 79 Man has a neat ashtray effect, but feels emaciated compared to its niche brethren. Enter Jeke. I'd passed on trying the Slumberhouse scents until recently. I suppose I was slightly put off by the prices - $160 for 30 ml is steep (if you're willing to go through discounters, you can get 100 ml of Chergui for that price). But having spent a few weeks with this fragrance, I can confidently say that the $ is justified. This deep, dark beauty nearly overwhelms at first with a plume of rich smoke that, to me, approaches the meeting point between a campfire and liturgical incense. What follows is a vivid approximation of a top-quality cigar and perhaps the mere suggestion of good whiskey. What's even more difficult to describe is the intensity with which Jeke offers up these aromas. This is strong stuff, which probably explains some of the criticism of the fragrance's opening. Over a period of several hours, Jeke gradually mellows and becomes drier yet - much as tobacco dried in the open air gradually loses its moisture and vitality. The base seems to include just a pinch of honeyed sweetness (no doubt from the benzoin/labdanum combo). That said, this is a more arid, more muscular take on tobacco than what I've previously encountered. This may end up being one of my top scents for the cooler weather. When I purchased it, I also received a sample of Norne - another fantastic scent that I'm expecting to explore.

In Jeke, I have finally found a fragrance that surpasses one of my all-time favorites: Tom Ford Tobacco Oud. In 2014, I was just beginning to appreciate fragrances when I got a sample of Tobacco Oud - it was one of the first heavy, resinous, smoky, and somewhat animalic fragrances I'd ever tried (along with Japon Noir, RIP), and it completely floored me. I found it challenging at the time though and sought out other tobacco-centric scents, but nothing really compared (with a few exceptions I eventually found, like the flanker Tobacco Oud Intense and Atelier Tobacco Nuit). I came to more fully embrace it and began wearing it often, but when I moved onto my second bottle recently I noticed its performance had declined (and now it's discontinued). Disappointed, I started looking for alternatives again. When searching around Basenotes I saw that Slumberhouse had several tobacco fragrances, so I got some small samples (Jeke, Baque, Ore, and Sova). I wasn't sure what to expect considering I had only before tried the beautiful but near-unwearable Norne - I know many love it, but I feel like I could only pull that stuff off at a black metal concert or while performing an ancient ritual deep in the forest. So with that in mind, I tried Jeke. I didn't think any tobacco scent could top the Tobacco Oud opening, but Jeke is something else entirely. Thick resins, booze, and the most spectacularly rich tobacco leaf I've ever laid my nose on. There's a also a wildness lurking underneath it all, the "barnyard" element some have mentioned. Over time, the vanilla - a bit sweet but dry - begins to emerge, fading in and out over the lifetime of the fragrance. This is obviously not for everyone, but if, like me, you love dry tobacco fragrances that don't heavily rely on sweet vanilla/honey/cherry, then you will not be able to get enough of this. It performs well with moderate projection and eternal longevity. Unfortunately, like all Slumberhouse fragrances it's hard to find. I was lucky to get it during the recent Luckyscent restock, but it looks like it's gone for now.

OK - two scents in (Norne & Jeke) and it's official: I am besotted with Slumberhouse perfumes. Extraordinarily rich, deep, complex, natural, characterful smells with real integrity and lasting power. And so delicious, too. I read Jeke has been discontinued so wanted to smell it before never having the chance again. I'm so glad I did - for this is the fireside chat of your dreams - wood and spice and warm resins, mellowing into the very finest herbal cigar tobacco and with a final phase of utterly lovely drier spiced wood again, cedar and sandalwood and fir and I don't know what else. The opening blast and first hour also feature a *powerful* reek of whisky - not usually my thing at all and I don't really want to smell like a distillery - but it's a fine single malt matured in the truest oak, not cheap rotgut, so I could live with it and even savour it after a while (teetotaller typing). This is what Don Draper would smell like early on in the evening, before things got too messy. Yet while it's full of notes with a lot of masculine associations, this is so multi-faceted and skilled that it's completely unisex IMHO - it just depends whether or not you love those notes as much as Jeke's formulator(s) did. Huge longevity, projection not immense, but this is strong stuff (and note for the user: it actually weakens in effect the more you apply - I had a minor dabber accident and emptied on more than I meant to on the second day of testing, and got less delicious Jekeiness than I had on the first with just the tiniest few drops). Less is definitely more with this. It has a calmer, more indoorsy and reflective feel than the pagan warlord that is Norne, but this shares its rugged-woodsman DNA and its redolence of real nature. Jeke is Norne's slightly more urbane, more controlled, more sophisticated big brother - a Viking who's sailed around the Med, perhaps - but they're recognisably from the same, stunningly talented, stable. Completely compelling.

I've been waiting to try Jeke for a long time now...too long! I honestly thought I was being conspired against, first of all it was difficult to find a sample (would be the only slumberhouse out of stock) and when I did eventually order a sample from Luckyscent they missed it off my order! (not that I'm dissing Luckyscent they provide an excellent service the majority of the time.) I thought I was destined to never try this one but I managed to get a sample over the weekend and wow! Wow...in a bad way (to begin with) the opening is atomic!!!! The juice stains your skin with a hefty, smokey onslaught of bangin' resins, the darkest patchouli and forest smoke. It's very nearly too much even for me and I was anticipating Jeke as being a holy grail of sorts. It kinda reminds me of both le labo Oud and Patchouli fragrances, (both of which I don't like) so oily smokey and dark. Then it settles down and becomes nicer. Then Jeke dries down properly and becomes a real "wow!" fragrance. This is what I was looking for from the notes. What I love is the benzoin and labdanum so sharp but smooth at the same time and this is a premium quality example of that. Really settled in now and the benzoin is like a dusty library book amber but without any softness of vanilla, just raw and unadulterated. The smokiness remains but subdues very nicely into a kind of pipe tobacco and patchouli, it's as thick and dense as you could possibly imagine but sits quite close to the skin, other than occasional wafting reminders. Conclusions are that I do in fact think Jeke is a superb fragrance and not totally unexpected but still not quite worth adding to my collection. I have to say I prefer the pine smoke of Norne and that's odd because I'm a total resin fanatic. If Slumberhouse's trick (or niche) is smokey, dark, unusual or uncompromising fragrances which it undoubtedly is, then I'm more than happy with that effect I get from Norne.