Reviews of Vikt by Slumberhouse

Dark, resinous and oud-y - that's how I'd describe Vikt. The opening is strong, spicy and sweet - similar to licorice, it kind of reminds me of black Harribo sweets. It may be star anise as well. Within time I detect oud nuances that I mentioned before - but rather resinous oud than smoky oud. There are smoky elements as well. I detect a hint of Sova and a pinch of Norne in Vikt, but not that much.

Very good sillage and good longevity.

Nice fragrance, a bit too spicy for my liking.

A dull, green light emanates from the darkened woods, growing brighter as I move through the trees. All around is a soft hum, as if electricity were pulsating through every branch. Black sap runs down the trunks like molten licorice, pooling in the undergrowth and obscured by a layer of fog. The light intensifies as I approach a clearing. I am alone, smothered in a world of blinding, black greenness.

Finally sampling the discontinued Vikt by Slumberhouse, one of a number of storied perfumes from the line that came and went before I was fragrance-obsessed. I'm a big Slumberhouse fan and Vikt seems to have a strong reputation, so my expectations were high before I applied it via a spray-and-dab style, not

The notes are oud, styrax, and ravensara (in the laurel family from Madagascar), unsurprisingly a rich and pungent blend–floral and herbaceous with bits of oud and other resins that create a semi-sweet, woody, plant-like blend, which almost has a boozy absinthe-like quality to it, as I get hints of wormwood.

I liken it to a “Norne with licorice/anisette,” though that's a bit of a crude comparison. Still, it has some of the woody and resinous qualities of the more recent Norne will surely deviating its in own way to a floral, sweeter side. Overall, it's a creation that fits in with the darker / more cold-weather-friendly entries in the Slumberhouse catalogue, certainly distinct enough in its own right while feeling a hint related to Norne.

I regard the darker Slumberhouse fragrances (Norne, Jeke, Ore, Sova, Rume, and probably Zahd) as the zenith of performance, superlative in terms of both projection and longevity. Vikt isn't quite up their level, superb in terms of longevity but not quite as boastful, projection-wise, as the others. Still, it would surely be a worthwhile buy at their former pricing ($160 for 30ml) or even their updated pricing (due to be $220 or so for 30ml, I believe, per a recent livestream by Slumberhouse owner/perfumer Josh Lobb). The main question is whether one would track it down for lots more, and I'm not sure I'm as in love with Vikt was a I was with Zahd, another discontinued scent that was released in an even more limited run of 125 bottles, juust in 2013, unlike Vikt, which had a run of several years between the older marble style bottle and the more recent flask-style bottle.

I think Vikt is quite neat, though, something most Slumberhouse fans would appreciate, and it's more of a “love” than a “like” for me, but not worth going crazy for on the tertiary market (i.e. eBay, p2p FB sales). But if you can come by a bottle at a reasonable price, it's a treasure, and I'd certainly be interested in acquiring a bottle.

8 out of 10

Love at first sniff!!! What an amazing fragrance! The main accord is a wonderful anise/licorice note that is the perfect level of spicy hotness, incredible! This is blended so wonderfully with balsamic and conifer notes that bring a dusky mellowness, while heightening the clear, piercing nature of the anise and the conifer at the same time. Brilliant blending and execution in my opinion. I love Rive Gauche Pour Homme, but the star anise note is very piercing in RGPH. In Vikt, it is perfectly balanced. This has moved way up my personal faves list! There is a slight hay like note in the early development of Vikt that isn't problematic for me, and was only slightly noticeable for a while. I don't smell it now at 7 hours in since application. I just realized that there is something about Vikt that reminds me of Noir Anthracite by TF. Interesting. Vikt became a skin scent on me at about the 5 hour mark, but the longevity was excellent, and I was still enjoying it 14 hours after application. This is my first wearing, so I'm looking forward to more opportunities to enjoy this excellent fragrance. Thumbs way up for Vikt!

Projects like a 10 million candle spotlight. Hot, spicy, hot, burny, hot...

“On candystripe legs the spiderman comes
Softly through the shadow of the blissfully dead
Looking for the victim shivering in bed
Searching out fear in the gathering gloom
Suddenly!
A movement in the corner of the room!
And there is nothing I can do
When I realise with fright that
The spiderman is having me for dinner tonight”

I walk in silence in this land that I do not know, exotic sensations of turmeric and Indian spices greet me on the edge of a border that I did not know, this land is called Kere. I already know that I'll stop here, maybe it will be my death or the fate of this new frontier.
Before crossing that limit, I sit for a moment on the grass and I light up a slow cigar, it was hand-made with leaves of the eternal Norne. I drink two drops of the last whisky I bought in the smoked land of Baque.
I am waiting for this cigar to clarify my ideas, while white flowers (known as white Greev) are diverting the tired smell of my sweat to more comfortable scenarios.
I go, finally.
White sheets are hung out to dry and the hot wind by Eki relaxes the journey of my eyes.
A woman gives me an aromatic food that looks like a pear but it actually is an olive "This is the fruit of the gardens of Rume, the Goddess celebrated on the holy green day of cinnamon…" she smiles and disappears.
A distillery invites me to enter. An old man presents his productions. He has already figured out that I wrote my story in alcool.
It speaks about Sova, a distillate product from the feathers of a bird I do not know. It speaks about Jeke, a kind of liquor made from bitter herbs I do not know.
He asks me where I come from.
"I come from Vikt!" I say.
"Then you're the man of the dream! The man who sleeps! Come on, we've been waiting you, your house is ready."
I do not know what he speaks about, and I do not know what he means, but my eyes are already closed. And in this house of sleep and dream, I'm still living from that day, and in this house I'm staying and I dream to die and I dream to stay and I dream to die and I dream to stay...

Advertised as a “dark rich sap.” Slumberhouse says of Vikt: “Dark balsamic woods slowly oozing sweet metallic oils – motions of soft smokey black agar woods through syrupy bronze resins. Incredibly deep & well rounded fragrance with a mellow darkness at its heart.”

The reason I quote the product description of Vikt is that, for probably the first time in my reviewing of 2000+ fragrances, the fragrance company, Slumberhouse, delivers, in spades, exactly what they say they are delivering. The fragrance is dark, balsamically smoky, oudy, and resinous. It is well rounded, metallic and boasts a certain mellow darkness –I don't need to review it, you can trust Slumberhouse's blurb.

Actually Vikt is too syrupy-dark (I could take either one but not both) for me, so I would have personally been voting a neutral, but the fact that the company has delivered precisely what they said they would and it is an unquestionably dramatic and creative fragrance… Well, Slumberhouse has me uber impressed. This fragrance is anything but a compromise with the bean counters and/or the marketing departments. This is love-it and/or hate-it creativity. Vikt is what I wish more “niche” purveyors would be about.

Interesting. Yes, Vikt has licorice, but there's just as much fennel (the natural-smelling green kind with a distinct onion undertone). There's also a complex boozy sweet syrupy red berry smell. It starts off fairly distinct - the individual notes are fairly separated - but with time the edges wear off and it forms a cohesive whole. I like this stage better (the onion-ness of the fennel with the strong sharpness of the licorice isn't particularly pleasant) because it smells weird, but much more well thought out. At that point, it pretty much just wears on, eventually fading far enough to reveal a galbanum-smelling base. I can't imagine wearing this as a signature scent, and I have other go-to's that I enjoy more when I want something clever and different, so I'm not really loving Vikt, but its creativity is worth at least a neutral rating.

I am not sure why, but I am very drawn to Vikt. Technically, I know I shouldn't be, because the opening notes are of a harsh and pungent black licorice, the likes of which I wouldn't normally put anywhere near my tongue let alone my nose. In fact, the licorice here reminds me of that salty kind that Scandinavians love, which my Danish stepmother gave me once and I promptly spat out, causing hours' worth of huffy sulking, tears and apologies. Piling worse on bad, there is distinct smell of something animalic, and not the cozy castoreum and civet type of animalics I usually love, but rather the folded-away-wet smell of a kitchen jiffy cloth that hasn't been rinsed out since its last go around the kitchen table. It smells moldy and more than a little objectionable.

But then, the truly horrific opening notes dissipate (and much more quickly than in other Slumberhouse scents) and it dries down to a heart that is green-resinous with bay leaf and slightly soapy / animalic in the vein of none other than Chanel's Cuir de Russie and the more recent Maai by Bogue Profumo. There is a hum of something dark and woody at the base, but the scent is mostly this resinous, soapy leather accord that I find deeply attractive and pleasurable to wear. There is something creamy or balsamic about the woods, soap, and leather here too, which contrasts nicely with the sharper herbal bay leaf. I am not sure when I last smelled something as horrific at the start dry down to something as sublime, and in such a short amount of time too. The only thing I've found about this is that it is not as dense or as long-lasting as the other Slumberhouse scents, which I put down to the lack of the black, sticky tar and oil notes Josh seems to use with more free abandon elsewhere. Vikt strikes me as being a very spare composition, but powerful and complex nonetheless. It just doesn't last as long as the others, is all.

Overall, this and Sova are the two standouts from Slumberhouse for me, with Norne following only a short distance behind. Like I said at the beginning, Vikt surprised me because it went from a scrubber (on me) to absolutely divine in the space of about an hour. Two thumbs up!

Ah, here's a challenging scent -- attractive, but over-the-top. Black licorice is one of my favorite flavors. I can eat a whole bag of it, which grosses out many people whom I know. The scent of this fragrance is big, sweet, round, pungent, and in-your-face. It says, "Licorice? Red or black?... Oh, you like red? Then BWA-HA-HA! Run for your life!" This is like dying of asphyxiation while smiling, with a plastic bag of black licorice clamped over one's head. It's like overdose-huffing on Kukaburra twists, licorice babies, licorice wheels, Haribo ribbons, and those Finnish squares that look like roof shingles. The whole black and syrupy concoction is dropped onto a slightly creamy base, which makes it opaque. I've enjoyed this one. Would I wear it? Probably not, but I appreciate it as an experience, so I give it a neutral.

This is what old Italian men wear to pay their respects at the funeral home! Creates exactly that unpleasant sense memory. Very dated sweet and moldy herbaceous quality. Fennel and musty dankness waft in a cloud of sweetness around the wearer. One must consider a pair of too short seersucker pants and a porkpie hat to complete their image when wearing VIKT by Slumberhouse...

I have just been scrubbing this off my wrist after nearly throwing up. A overwhelming creamy licorice concoction of I don't know what. It's horrrriddd, ahhhh I wish I could unsmell it.

Straight on my top chart of Slumberhouse, which is actually an ex-aequo of most of their scents. Ultra-modern elegance at its best. The first smell is something completely new, a narcotic, velvety feel, sensual and mellow but in a totally unique way, nondescript and physically irresistible, extremely persuasive and pleasant, halfway between sticky and dusty. I detect the over-dark, venomous oily accord of styrax and benzoin (and trisamber?) of other Slumberhouse scents, but here is played in a suspended, aerial, azure-green balsamic nowhere. And there lies that "smell" I find so luring and irresistible, it's like and anisic, medicinal, poisonous talcum. Incense notes emerge too. Usual terrific balance of notes and quality of materials. On the base you feel this dirty, sticky terpenic river of dark woods with a medicinal vibe, but the main unique feature of the scent is that translucent anisic smoke with silky tobacco notes, which just surrounds everything. At some point, from somewhere, a fruit note drips into the base darkness, and it brings to life a subtle rancid note. Crazy alchemic balance. The "visual experience" here is consistent with Josh Lobb's obsessions, it's like wandering in a decaying, post-modern, desert suburb, and just stopping by a crevice on a wall and inspire the narcotic azure smoke it exhales. Several notes recur, and compared to other scents from this line, this is one of the most complex for me, as it show many nuances and shades. It's still quite linear, but the linearity is vast and dimensional enough not to get bored of it. After a couple of hours it gets warmer and sweeter, the balsamic-medicinal accord emerges better as well as the ambroxan base, still with a black sticky vein and a dry, gloomy, industrial rubbery feel of dead woods (perhaps a bit too much rubbery after a while). Echoes and ruins of a dissolved contemporaneity.

8,5-9/10

This review is for the latest version of Vikt in its extrait form.

Vikt is difficult for me to describe using notes alone. While the top is distinctly marked with an intense and robust licorice note, and the base primarily seems to consist of oud and incense, I feel more compelled to describe this one through colors and impressions. For me, Vikt provokes an image of a dark, murky mangrove forest of swirling brown and blacks, accented in part by a haunting green glow which both plays the edges and rests mysteriously in its depths. There's something spooky about Vikt. The interplay between the brown, almost-decaying forest, the black night, and the bizarre, supernatural green sets an unusual tone I have not encountered in any other fragrance. If you're familiar with Amouage's Memoir Man, and believe that to be a dark and mysterious composition, you've seen nothing yet. Memoir Man is light and fluffy in comparison. However, that's not to say that Vikt is cold, detached, or depressing in any way--it's simply peculiar, a little spooky, and altogether unique. And if I were to get down to the bottom of it, I'd say that ultimately, behind it all, lies a benevolent spirit. I love this one, and it continues to grow on me the more I wear it. If you enjoy fragrances which are different and sometimes might seem challenging at first, then Vikt is definitely worth sampling.

How does it smell? I'll keep this brief: There is a strong licorice note--which alternates between black and a brighter green. The incense in this superb--one of my favorites--and while it's not particularly smoky it's very, very deep and dark and has an almost magnetic way of drawing you in. Finally, the oud, which kind of sits between the licorice and incense, has a slight animalic/barnyard feel to it, which amplifies or recedes with different wears. However it's not overpowering at all, and serves more as a nice accent to the composition.

Thumbs way up for Vikt, a distinct and altogether pleasing offering from Slumberhouse.

Magnificent earthy, treey, decaying vegetal smells! Under them, deeply hynotic floral/fruit all-smushed-together-until-the-sweetness-is-gone impressions. This is one great fragrance. It speaks. The Phantom of the Opera could wear Vikt. It says: "Come with me to dark, mysterious caverns." I won't go, but I sure as all get out want to hear about the trip! Fragrantica says the main accords are: balsamic, fresh spicy, oud, camphor, aromatic. This is a haunting fragrance. You could also leave out the "a" and say hunting. Glorious decadence. Beautiful. Yes, technically, it's green and woody and a tad spicy, but, shucks, those are only words. If I ever decide to go to hell in a handbasket or on wheels, or to kingdom come, I'll wear Vikt! Applause!

Unfortunately, I have to give this one a thumbs down. The description says dark woods, but I don't get that at all. On me it smells like an overly sweetened menthol cough drop. I liked it at the opening the first time I tried it, but after a few days of wearing it, the dry down got more and more difficult to take.

If it is any consolation, my wife did say that it smelled like "real pine" one morning. Problem is...she doesn't like pine.

I am very glad I went with the sample before blind buying this one.

Very strong Projection monster...an explosion of cloves, nutmeg, other "hot" spices...like an herbal muscle rub. From a distance, this isn't bad...but I can't spray it on myslef b/c it is so strong.

To me, this is primarily a vetiver scent, in the gourmand style. It's not far from Vetiver Tonka, but fruitier. Maybe how one might imagine Lutens would do vetiver (if unfamiliar with Vetiver Oriental, which is not similar, however). One of the least Yankee-Candalesque of the range. Not bad. Average projection and longevity.

I like this!!! After buying a bottle of Norne I ordered a sample set of Slumberhouse fragrances that includes Vikt. Immediately upon applying Vikt, the green coniferous scents that are so present in Norne appeared, but without Norne's smoke. Then after about 30 miniutes Vikt began opening up very differently from what I was expecting, based on my experience with Norne. While Norne keeps a dense pine/coniferous heart, Vikt becomes more spacious, open and lighter, gradually revealing a slight sweetness and woodiness that balances very nicely with the green opening. I can see Vikt taking me though the autumn, when I then transition in winter to Norne with its smokey fir.

This is an excellent scent, my second favorite of the line (after Norne).
Allegedly containing "dark balsamic woods, sweet metallic oils, soft smokey agar woords, and syrupy bronze resins". I find that cluster to be a reasonably accurate description, though the scent is less sweet and dense than the description suggests.
It is woody and resinous, and very green. It is quite aromatic, with a balsamic note so fresh and appealing that it verges on coniferous. The so-called metallic notes are there, but they are not sharp or unpleasant, rather they add a coolly bright "bite" to the scent. Probably from the agarwood. And there are lovely sappy notes as well.
It wears very well on my skin.
Update: The scent was relaunched in 2014.
Notes (according to Slumberhouse) are vetiver, ravensara (a camphoraceous herb), oud, stryax, mukhallat attar, anise.
A very dry herbal-resin scent. Powerful at first, but the dry-down is gentle. Very good. Herbal notes are like eucalyptus, tarragon and laurel. The oud is not pronounced. "Mukhallat" simply means "mixture" in Arabic, so no firm conclusions can be drawn as to what this particular one might be. A woody-green chypre, very pleasant to wear. Perhaps one of the driest and lightest (most translucent) of the Slumberhouse line.

I bought the oil version of this (new and limited) and am enjoying this very much. Smells rich and somewhat sweet with almost a licorice smell mixed with agarwood and some scents I really can't identify. Smells very "round" and well blended and a bit strange, maybe a smoky note and has a syrupy feeling. Not your run of the mill scent! The profile above says there is bay leaf in here and I do smell something that hints at a green note so maybe that is bay leaf. This scent seems to grow as it heats up on my body. I will have to wear this some more and update this review, I have only worn this twice. I am loving it but I don't know why. Unique. And such a small house that I just know there is almost no chance of smelling this on anyone else. I like that!

I own a vial of this wonderful fragrance thanks to my friend Alfarom so kind to introduce me in to  this very interesting niche  brand. Vikt is a smell from the forest. It is  basically green-aromatic, incensey, resinous, very syrupy, slightly boozy and smoky. This is the smell from a forest's bonfire glowing together dried fruits, herbs, resinous firewoods, dry leaves, juniper berries and leather. The smell is dense and obscure but in a dark-green and fruity way. I even smell an oily kind of sweetness coming from burnt sugar while the initial metallic and tarry effect is produced by the first stage of the interaction between balsamic resins, aromatic leaves, fruits and the notable anice-licorice tarry accord. The combination of agarwood or conifer's resins, woods, tar and incense reminds me some fragrances as Black Tourmaline or Sombre Negra but this one is less incensey-opaque and more woodsy/resinous-anisy-honeyed. The "long tail" dry down is an obscure burnt spark of sticky boise and "metallurgical" leather (a la House of Matriarch Blackbird) extremely modern, somewhat oneiric and almost threatening. A great, great fragrance.

What a suprise! Vikt has an incredibly bone-dry structure but it smells rich and satisfying. It opens with a bizarre laurel/agarwood (sort of) metallic accord that smells something like "liquorice wheels" and burnt sugar with a remarkable balsamic effect. Intense, dark and bold. Incense make its appearance and perfectly blends with agarwood assuring a warm and comfortable drydown that's not very far from Durbano's Black Tourmaline.

Extremely modern and bizarre, yet quite intriguing.