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.
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.