Jeke has a fascinating concept that started "with a batch of smokey cade oil and the idea of a night time stroll with burning autumn woods in the distance - something fiery and burnt yet chillingly desolate, November illusory, breath of fog, ablaze. Into this design I sought to embed a defined masculinity - something well-worn yet intellectual, a refinement streamlined with rustic attributes - warmth of cigars in humidors, old leather shoes and odd buckles, traces of a fragmented sweet spice, the mysterious atmosphere that adorns the well traveled."
Jeke is intriguingly smoky with warm woody notes, a sensual hint of leather and a fantastic tobacco! My mother rolles her own cigarettes and keeps her shag in a leather tobacco pouch so when I sniff this I get the image of that pouch in my mind. This does not smell like tobacco smoke to me, but rather of woodsmoke. We have a tradition of Easter bonfires in Finland and this scent transports me to such a bonfire. The dark forest, the chill in the air, but most of all that blazing heat of the huge bonfire, the smoke drifting towards the dark blue sky and my mother rolling a cigarette. I think I get this image because of the fact that I won´t be going home for Easter this year... I regret that I´ll miss that bonfire and I definitely miss my home... I suspect that at any other time of the year this would be a scent to make my inner Steampunk happy. It could provoke the feeling of being an explorer of the Steampunk kind, gritty and dirty from tinkering with the airship, garbed in leathers, smoking a pipe and looking at old maps of exotic unexplored places. I really want to own more of this some day, when I have the money.
Grev is described as "The interpretation of the dapperest embodiments of a true gentleman. A deep, spicy, earthy, rooty fragrance with an elegant kick of herbs tinted through shades of orris, clove, birch and fir".
This one doesn´t evoke as many feelings and images as Jeke but it truly is one of the most elegant scents I have ever smelled. Grev is dignified and self contained where Jeke is gritty and wild. Grev is cold where Jeke is warm. To me these two scents seem like opposites, the arrogant highborn gentleman and the uncaringly unkempt explorer. The scent itself is herbal and I get that powdery kind of smell that I associate with orris root. I can smell clove and woods too, but somehow they manage to be old and frosty. As you might be able to see in the pictures, this perfume is a pale turquoise blue color, and I feel that this color mirrors the scent very well. I get the image of a elegant gentleman all dressed up in his finery going for a walk in a frosty park.
Free samples:
Pear + Olive is, I believe, the most recent scent from Slumberhouse. On the Slumberhouse blog the scent is described, apart from the pear and the olive, as "soft shades of herbal sweetness from Roman chamomile, the bitter booziness of grape tissue from French white cognac oil, the wet and earthy hues of zdravets crowned with the rich, velvety green gem of the very rare aglaia absolute. A chord of massoia bark & calamus absolute was created to provide a trace of cream".
This scent is lovely, very balanced and well made, but I´m lacking a concept, an intriguing background. And it smells a lot like an Yves Rocher pear perfume that I had when I was little... Not a positive association at all... I will forever associate pear and apple notes with the pear and apple perfumes I owned and overdosed on back then. Anyone who enjoys pear will love this though. It has the same smooth depth as the other scents but it is a bright and happy fragrance and you all know that that´s not my thing. There are some intriguing notes here that I have never encountered before, but they can´t quite make up for that pear.
Baque is described on the Slumberhouse blog as "a warm amber tobacco flower perfume containing notes of smokey apricot, cedar, straw, vanilla, tobacco leaf, davana, ambergris tincture and parchment. Elegant, rustic, golden and warm properly sum the four corners of its tobacco and honey heart".
This one is a fine comforting scent! The tobacco is sharp at first but mellows and mingles with sweet notes of amber and honey. This scent is somehow dusty and dry, I can smell straw and I imagine that I sense that note of parchment. Baque somehow makes me think of autumn forests covered with dry crinkly leaves. I wouldn´mind owning more of this, but unfortunately it seems that it is an older LE.
Kere is described as "Milky apricot, white chocolate and spiced plum-meat accords add texture and color to syrupy orange honeysuckle absolute and licorice within a halo of vaporous aldehydes reminiscent of champagne fizz. A circus of bizarre pairings harmonized in a blurring fashion that slowly devolves into spicy sugared hay and caramel".
This here is the most awesome gourmand scent ever!! It is so complex, so deep, I can´t even tell what notes I am smelling but it is so utterly, utterly divine!! I can smell licorice and caramel but there is also a sharp bite of warm spice. I doesn´t evoke any memories or places, it doesn´t transport me at all, but hey, I don´t care! Because I´m quite happy with being right here and experiencing only this scent and nothing more! This is another brilliant composition, balanced and intriguing! And the sillage! It is monstruous!! I´d love to own a larger bottle of this one, but alas, this too seems to have been a limited edition scent... Maybe it will come again sometime, preferably when I have some money to my name.
Slumberhouse really is such a fascinating perfumery! There is an intriguing depth to all of these scents, a rounded and smooth feeling that makes these seemingly simple scents so very complex and deep. Again and again I find myself using the word deep to describe them, I´m sorry I can´t seem to put this feeling of depth into better words... I also love the mysterious concepts behind them and the beautiful images that come to my mind when smelling them! Some of them take me away to other places and situations and all at least evoke certain moods!
All of these scents have good longevity and sillage, some more so than others. You can definitely tell that they are very concentrated! As they have no top notes there are no sharp changes in scent through the drydown. Some reviewers have remarked that these scents change dramatically about half an hour an hour into wear but I have not had any such experiences. What I get at the beginning is what follows me for the whole time!
Samples of Norne, Jeke and Pear + Olive can be ordered from the Slumberhouse website. Rume, Vikt and Grev have now been discontinued but are still available at places like indiescents until the stock runs out.
