Geist III

The first riff in a dark, crowded venue: a wall of pitch-black oud, phenolic and medicinal, laced with hinoki smoke and resin that feels almost charred at the edges.

As the minutes pass, the harsh glare eases and the burnt woods, Malaysian oud resin, and vintage birch tar settle into something slower and more hypnotic, like embers pulsing in a firebox while incense curls through the air.

Castoreum, choya lubań, and dark patchouli add an animal warmth and leathery grit, giving the whole thing the mood of a backstage room thick with gear, leather, and smoke after a heavy set. 

JINX is an artisan house working out of a refurbished restaurant in Canandaigua, in the Finger Lakes region of central New York State. Arthur Clayton Emrick runs it, mostly self-taught, with a love of chemistry forged through beer and wine making and the culinary arts. The inspiration is Michigan, an extremely rural part of it, and the wild flowers and deep woods of a childhood there. The work is oud-centric and animalic, built on high-quality natural materials used in quantity.

Many of the JINX fragrances are entirely natural and many are not. Synthetic materials, where they are used, are named rather than left out. US houses are not bound by IFRA, and JINX complies with it anyway wherever synthetics appear. Natural animal musks appear in several of the releases. Materials are named specifically. A sandalwood by its year, an oud by where it came from.