Summer In My Sadness

Warm night air rolls in off a golden coast, rich with saffron, rose, and worn leather.

It begins bright and sharp — saffron, a squeeze of lemon, and a peppery spark that feels lively and bold. Soon the mood softens. Rose de Mai and geranium bloom like flowers cut at dusk, with a powdery violet edge that keeps things tender. Then everything sinks into something deeper: vintage Mysore sandalwood from 1965, smooth and creamy, wrapped in vanilla, supple leather, and warm balsams. The feeling is regal yet easy, the way a grand old room can feel lived-in and welcoming at once. It calls back to Oman's golden era of decades past — gold light, slow evenings, and a warmth that feels like a memory of somewhere loved.

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.