Tigerwood Antique Jinx 2024

The explorer's spirit is truly a very natural, albeit infernal, phenomenon, as it threatens to turn into greed. New discoveries quickly become crystallization points of recognition; the need seems to be met anew, at least for a certain time, so it appears. For with the abundance of releases and newly positioned brands, one is constantly challenged. The fascination of the extraordinary remains deceptive: What is worthwhile, and what should be carefully excluded?

Finding one’s way in this labyrinth can sometimes be a hellish torment, as a large part of the brands now only communicate through digital grapevine. Established artisan brands like Ensar serve as a model: mixed in good faith and increasingly emphasizing the origin and quality of the selected raw materials. All of this is supposed to indicate an additional quality standard. So much for the theory.

Jinx will celebrate its third anniversary next spring. Originally launched as a Kickstarter project at the end of 2021, it can now be considered a firmly established indie brand, especially with the release of Collection II this year. This reveals little about the actual quality of the output, but rather about the perseverance needed to survive in this fiercely competitive market. The owner is, like many of his artisan colleagues, primarily a fragrance lover, not a food chemist or cosmetic lab technician. His creations are not free from synthetic additives, but are largely kept natural unless otherwise noted on the product sheet. Whether the prices reflect the quality of the craftsmanship is something everyone must answer for themselves.

The loyal customer base evidently agrees with him. Loyalty can be illustrated, not least, by various Patreon memberships. One person's joy is another's sorrow: The ordinary fragrance enthusiast often lacks access to his limited scent concepts, which are exclusively reserved for the aforementioned members. Even so, these often miss out and go empty-handed even with regular releases in the in-house webshop, as the individual (sometimes heavily limited) releases are too sought after. This also applies to the present one, which sold out in record time. Thus, the pretty slogan: "Perfume is for everyone" seems somewhat short-sighted.

Fragrance Profile
The opening is ruggedly dry to brittle, characterized by consistently strong aromas. Some might say: musty-woody. In the background, wafts of powdered cocoa and crushed coffee diffuse, which fluctuate in amplitude over time. The namesake oud is quite powerful, warm to slightly peppery (nutmeg), and also emits a slightly oily scent (terpene), but at the same time provides a certain brightness to the fragrance profile, which for the first two hours seems almost claustrophobic (gloomy), as if one were finding oneself in a locked wooden chest. All this is extensively supported by a sharply spicy copaiba balsam infusion, which hardens smokily and strictly like a stain. The iris initially appears somewhat exaggerated, showing its earthy, slightly powdery side in the first minutes and reminding, in conjunction with the selected agarwood, of the top-notch "Indian Papyrus | Jinkoh Store." Gradually, the clove pushes to the forefront, setting both spicy and fresh accents and coloring the fragrance profile accordingly. The texture of the wood increasingly breaks open, a scent of resigned conifers (minimal) and sawdust escapes, which blends cleverly with clove and the gourmand connection of vanilla and cocoa. Certain reminiscences of The History of Indonesian Oud inevitably come to mind here; however, the Jinx remains far more complex - not only in composition - than the "only-Oud Release" from Russian Adam.

What should not go unmentioned is the sharp look at the weaknesses: While the gourmand connection (cocoa, vanilla) can sensibly smooth the rough intent, it ultimately feels a bit too pointedly worked out for me. This somewhat destabilizes the actual idea without completely derailing it. Far more debatable is a - admittedly only somewhat - sublimely pronounced, synthetic-seeming scent note in the background (profile: glue-like, fresh-bright), which I already perceived in high doses in "Roxo | Jinx," possibly triggered by the animalic bycatch (white amber, castoreum) and/or through the interplay of certain other notes (Palo Santo, sandalwood). Since the brand owner usually discloses his synthetic additives directly (see above), such a circumstance would surprise me. This may be less problematic in the end, as I do not find the note disturbing here; however, this circumstance should not go unmentioned.

Conclusion
Far from his usual "Mixed Media" releases, which I have found less appealing so far, the brand owner has succeeded in creating a remarkable piece here. The fragrance generates an encompassing atmosphere of antique wooden furniture, impresses with its noble primality and warmth - a play of contrasts - where temporal and spatial horizons blur, everything increasingly becoming disembodied. Here, one is offered the opportunity, even though one is not a contemporary witness of this era, to look at it from the outside. An aesthetic pleasure that wants to be directly experienced rather than merely worn, where appearance and reality ultimately become indistinguishable, presenting themselves as olfactory overhangs and fragments of the past. The fundamental tone is kept robust, the pictorial intention implemented in form: a branch of the East India Company - cargo received from the spice islands and stored in the attic; an antique chest with strong fittings and darkened wood, which once saw tongues of flames and yet survived, kept in a rustic style, immersed in a dark color scheme.

Tigerwood Antique is for me an olfactory postscript to the meaning-giving aesthetics of great and especially bold perfume narratives: surprisingly rich and enduring (longevity: +14 hrs.; fragrance concentration: 41%), while being less coarse - in execution - rather finely crafted and well-made, simply of elevated artisanal quality. Here, skill is accompanied by being. As a concept - despite or perhaps because of its complex concreteness - surprisingly wearable, as a mere perfume, however, likely too cumbersome and dense for the majority of people. A fragrance for connoisseurs!