Thirteen (13): July 2007

[Jenesis]

A base of cocoa absolute and white chocolate with thirteen baneful and beneficial bits including vanilla bean, white ginger, orchid, golden peach, massoia bark, clove, honey, and starfruit.

Wet: Strangely, I can smell no chocolate at all. Although it is making my stomach rumble. May be subconscious?

Drydown: This smells very "department store perfume".

Dry: Yum! I smell edible! (I love foodies...) The chocolate has come out, but it's thankfully not overpowering (a la Candy Butcher) like I thought it would. The whole scent is rich and smooth - sweet cocoa over the rich fruit and vanilla. The scent reminds me of those special edition hot chocolate flavours that Cadburys released a few months back.

Dry (10 mins): It is official: My skin eats white chocolate. This reminds me quite a bit of Xanthe, with the bright fruits and slight "perfumey" tang. Perhaps a slightly less liberal application is called for. 13 isn't a top three scent for me, but it is a top ten! (Seeing as I only have thirteen bottles...) Edited September 5, 2007 by Shollin

[ceiswyn]

In the bottle: At first it's the cocoa I smell, followed by something unidentifiably fruity, with a hint of flowers.

 

On the wrist: On the palm of the hand where I spilled it wrist, the white chocolate instantly comes through, and the spices and (I think) massoia bark come through quite strongly. I can, I think, smell the orchid in the background, and that worries me; I'd hoped there'd be very little orchid in this, since it amps on my skin. The hint of fruit is still there, but not as strong on my wrist; fruit never is.

 

One and a half hours later: White chocolate, with the faintest hint of fruit, flowers and spices, gradually going dusty on the wrist. On the palm, strongly white chocolate and vanilla, with a whisper of spices.

[aestien]

Bottle: cocoa and sweet fruit

Wet: cocoa, vanilla, honey, sweet fruit

Dry: the best chocolate baked good ever

 

This scent is interesting, as the honey and peach combo were threatening to be too sweet on me, and the peach note is always a little iffy on my skin, but in this blend they don't ever get there balanced by the darkness of the cocoa and the spices of the ginger and clove, ending up with a delicious cocoa, honey, vanilla, spice blend. It's sensuous and slightly exotic.

 

eta: spelling

Edited August 4, 2007 by Sonnett

[Babylon]

Sticky honeyed peaches drizzled in chocolate! And somehow, even though it smells like that, it really reminds me of the original 13. It must be that same chocolate note.

[supremegoddessofall]

In bottle: Chocolate and something that smells like buttercream.

 

On me: Ooh, hello honey! Honey on top of chocolate with just a touch of spices. Vanilla swimming around, too. Very yummy and very me.

[Blood onmy hands]

I would have bet my life that there is fig in this. It smells strongly of a woody sort of fig on me, and it starts off unpleasantly warm and perfumey as well. Perhaps the massoia bark and fruit is what is giving me that fig impression. Fig and a perfumey, warm floral. My boy gave it a thumbs down and said that it smelled wooden, musky, & masculine to him. I asked if he wanted to wear it and he said no though, lol.

 

After a half hour, I like this more as the department store perfume aspect fades off, but it still smells strongly of fig on me. I can't pick out any chocolate at all, but this takes on a creamier, sweeter edge the longer that I wear it. It begins to smell like fig swimming around in buttery, salty vanilla cream with drizzles of honey and a light, sweet spice.

 

I'm on the fence about this. By the time it reaches a stage that I really like, it is incredibly light and clings close to the skin. It has faded away entirely before I've even worn it for two hours. I don't know if I'd be willing to wait out the unpleasant first half hour or so for the incredibly light, yummy drydown. I'd go through a bottle pretty quickly with the amount that I'd have to slather on for each wear.

 

I wish this lasted longer and had better throw as it is, I probably won't keep my bottle. It starts off too perfumey and fades far too quickly.

 

*ETA: I *did* swap away my bottle of this and it turned out to be a case where I should have given this blend some time to age. I recently got another full bottle in a swap and I love this now. It instantly reaches the drydown stage that I initially loved. Lots of vanilla bean, warmth from the clove and ginger, and an extra zap of sweetness from the honey. In the drydown now, it stays pretty much the same, but with an added hint of white chocolate and cocoa . The staying power and throw is even better on me now. This Thirteen just needed some time to age (or maybe my skin chemistry needed time?), because it's fantastic on me now.

Edited April 30, 2008 by Tania

[phedre]

I finally got my hands on my bottle of 13 today. Know what it turns into on me? Storyville with a peach twist. Slightly less spicy/clove, but close enough that I can probably stop searching high and low for a second bottle of my beloved, and store tons of this version of 13 instead.

 

It's cocoa, vanilla, a touch of ginger, sweetness, and rich decadence all in one luscious package. I shall be hoarding this one.

[dzurlady]

I was really looking forward to this! I was expecting heavy chocolate with hints of sweet and fruit. I like it, but that wasn't quite what I got.

 

In the bottle: A wave of sweet fruit (peach and starfuit, and maybe something else?), followed by chocolate. Some people reported a layer of cocoa at the bottom, but my bottle doesn't have that.

On me, wet: Surprisingly fruitly. At first a wave of chocolate, with the same sweet fruity throw, tending more and more to fruity. No clove (thankfully) and if the other notes are there they aren't standing out. It's really nice, with wafts of scent coming off my wrist and making me sniff deeply and smile.

On me, dry: Slightly more vanilla bean, ginger and massoia bark (I'm guessing this is the light coconut smell), but the fruity smell predominates. Pretty much no chocolate (this happened to me with the Oct 06 13 too, so I wear it layered with Velvet).

On me, later: Sweet and fruity, pretty faint. No chocolate. Not nearly as nice as it was in the bottle and wet - when I get my scent locket I shall wear it in that.

Edited August 10, 2007 by dzurlady

[widdershins]

This was spicier than I expected. It's all warm gingery-clove-chocolate. The first couple of times it actually made my stomach feel queasy, but that could be because I usually dislike foody scents. Recently, I can't get enough of it! Whenever I get a craving for sweets late at night I dab this on my wrists and neck and it's perfect!

[stasha]

In the imp it smells a lot like raw cocoa, very bark-y. It remains that way on my skin as it dries with a little bit of sweet fruit mixed into it. It's not an unpleasant scent but the longer it dries the more indifferent I become. I haven't smelled Bliss yet but I much prefer Candy Butcher to this.

[Paige]

Wet and in the Bottle I smelldark chocolate/cocoa.

As it dries, you get whiffs of something that smells fruity but not yet also vaguely floral-y as well.

Dry it smells like hot cocoa on a winters eve with a side serving of starfruit/musk.

 

It's kind of too heavy for me as I like soft scents.

Sorry 13 (July) that we weren't made for one another, I'll still keep the decant but not the bottle. *waves sadly*

[sedona]

I ordered this on a hunch that I'd like it even though the chocolate oils I've tried already didn't work for me Bliss had a high, almost urine note and Velvet somehow became chocolate nut

 

In the bottle - Rich chocolate with a fruit grounding

 

Wet - The fruitiness is rising now along with a juicy definite 'perfume' note.

 

Wearing - The fruit makes itself known bigtime as 'I am Peach!', in fact it dominates the chocolate. There's a swirling of vanilla and a hint of spice from either the ginger or clove too.

 

My son told me 'very nice, you smell like a candle'....I think that's a compliment from an 18 year old!

 

I could still smell this as a honey chocolate skin scent the morning after

[yeahbutnobut]

13 (July 07)

 

In the bottle: mmm, this smells almost like a chocolate milkshake, it's a cool chocolate scent, and I smell the white choc, which I love.

Wet on skin: what the? Now it's gone sour? No, please don't do the sour milk thing…please!

Dry on skin: noooo…this was really promising before, but now it smells a little bit sour. I've had a few other chocolate scents do this, from Arcana and Possets, but this is the first time I've got that reaction with a BPAL chocolate scent. Chocolate milk gone rancid. It's a shame really because I smell honeyed peach and maybe a hint of spice too, as well as the creamy chocolate I got before. I have a feeling the starfruit may be responsible for the sourness, it is a very sharp-tasting fruit, but I didn't get that reaction from 13 Oct 06, which also had starfruit.

After a while: ok, the sourness seems to be retreating, thankfully. It's still sharp, but it's more of a peach like sharpness now. I also smell the honey, which is a sharper honeycomb scent and not a sweet sticky honey, as well as the creamy base of vanilla and white chocolate, and something that may be massoia. The ginger is also strong at this point, warming the scent up gently. Now this makes me think of a chocolate milkshake made with Sudha Segara, or a chocolate lassi with peach instead of mango. It seems that the sour chocolate milk is retreating and the scent is turning to a very nice spiced peach.

After about 30 mins-1 hour, there's nothing sour here. It's a gingery peach with a touch of something almost like brown sugar, and a hint of chocolate. There's also a honeyed orchid scent, reminiscent of Regan. Then it becomes a gorgeous honeyed peach with a touch of creamy spice. This is a lot nicer than I thought it would be!

After a very interesting and pleasant dry yet creamy peach stage (I smell a dry, almost papery note there-it must be the massoia because it reminds me of Arcana's Lost for Words), it then becomes milky again. It also becomes nutty, but in an odd, salted nuts way which I'm not crazy about. This is almost rancid and threatens to turn sour again, despite the sweet peach trying to prevent this.

Verdict: this version of 13 has me so torn! It's got some beautiful moments which I love, moments of peaches and cream spiced with ginger, but it also has moments when it doesn't smell very good at all. it veers so dramatically from these stages of 'omg yum!' to 'wtf? Nooo!' I was saddened by the way this turned to sour milk as soon as it hit my skin, a sharp, rancid chocolate milk smell, but I decided to wait it out. And I'm glad I did because the sourness did leave, and the moved through pleasant stages of spicy peach, honeyed fruity milk, and gingered chocolate cream poured all over peaches topped with honey. and then it turned into salted peanuts (which was really random and not very nice at all) before turning to milky spicy peach again, and morphing constantly through varying stages of spice, fruit, sweetness and weirdness. So I do like it, but not as much as I hoped. I'll keep it because when it is good, it is very, very good, and it may get better with age. but it is my least favourite 13 so far.

Emoticon rating:

Is it a keeper? maybe one bottle.

If you like this, try: 13 (all previous versions), Sudha Segara, Milk Moon (any), White Rabbit, Bliss, Cupid Complaining to Venus

[Nimthiriel]

Initial impression:

I've been looking forward to trying this! *pets my precious decant* In the vial, it's a complex blend of cocoa powder, clove, orchid and peach – what a bewildering scent!

 

First on:

On my skin, it immediately goes 90% clove, with a dash of starfruit and the slightest hint of cocoa. I hope the clove will die down a bit, because it'd be awfully annoying if it ruined it for me.

 

Dry:

After about 10 mins, the scent is a complex harmony of a little cocoa powder, ginger, orchid and clove. It tries to morph into icky ”green scent” on my skin, but it's behaving for the moment.

 

20-30 mins after application, it has gone much more chocolatey – yay! Chocolate, warm peaches, sweet honey, glorious vanilla, stingy spices... Ahh. I enjoy this. Not as much as I'd hoped, but I like it!

 

Finally:

I'm holding on to this, I think. I'm very glad I got to try it!

[Nia]

What I detect is the same flowers-on-white-chocolate of the previous edition of 13, but here the chocolate is hardly there. I wouldn't know this had chocolate if I didn't know the description, and even so, it is recognisably a Thirteen, if that makes any sense.

 

What I detect the more are the fruity, less creamy notes: it's something like ginger-peach-starfruit-orchid, in that order, on a creamy base. I'm glad to have some, but the previous edition is certainly more chocolatey on me.

[phantasmmysteria]

I passed up buying any bottles of this after hearing it was heavy on the chocolate, but I wound up swapping for a bottle of it anyway. I'm happy I did!

 

This one really suprised me. I'm not that fond of gourmand scents, but I found this to be highly wearable. It's warm, spicey chocolate with hints of orchid and peach (which is unfortunate, as I would have loved more fruit in the mix). The honey doesn't turn sour (a feat considering my chemistry) and the blend is never overly sweet. As an aside, the Manthing smells no chocolate at all -- he says I smell like incense when I wear this.

 

This may not be my favorite blend EVAR!, but it's great and I will wear it fairly often.

[n3m3sis42]

My "13" order was lost in the mail for seemingly forever, but it finally made it back to me! So now I can finally review it, and yay!

 

In the bottle:

Almost all chocolate, and if I hadn't smelled Bliss before I might not be able to make out that there are other notes at all. I can kindasorta smell the clove a bit.

 

Wet:

Duh, chocolate. But as this dries down, I find that I am one of the lucky few who can smell the other notes pretty well--I'm getting a lot of peach and clove.

 

Dry:

I must be the exception to the statement that the chocolate notes in this predominate. On me, this is definitely foody, but it's a pretty even mix of the dessert-y and fruity notes. Gorgeous.

[funkmoppet]

I fully expected to not like this. I'm not a foodie-blend girl.

 

Wet, this is cocoa with cocoa and a chocolate chaser. Very nice chocolate, but not a scent I'm fond of wearing.

 

But the change in this blend comes on quickly, and the orchid and ginger push up giving it a lovely light edge and countering the richness. The peach, mercifully, is subdued, as is the honey.

 

Drying down, the vanilla picks up and the chocolate heads for the background as the clove comes through. This is far less foody than I expected. Dry on me, it's more of a fruity, vanilla floral with a cocoa base.

 

Lovely! Not a favourite, and how often I reach for this is yet to be seen, but for now I'll hang onto the bottle. I'd like to see what a bit of aging does to it.

[alicia_stardust]

This version of 13 is, once again, gorgeous.

 

In the bottle I smell nothing but cocoa absolute. It is mouth-watering.

 

On my skin I smell cocoa absolute right off the bat, but it doesn't take long for the other notes to come out to play. For the most part this ends up being a creamy, chocolatey scent with clove and honey and starfruit. I do detect a bit of the massoia bark, but the peach doesn't seem to make an appearance at all.

 

For some reason the 13 blends, even if very different, all seem to be a bit soporific when I wear them. They seem to calm and soothe my stress away and put me into a quiet, still mood.

 

This version of 13 seems to accent the cocoa and clove. I give it 4 out of 5 and I will keep my bottle of it.

 

(This one makes a great room scent!)

[elenore]

Preconceived notions: I thought for some reason that this 13 was supposed to be the most chocolatey one, which is why I went ahead and got some.

 

In bottle: Nice, milk chocolatey smell.

 

On, wet: chocolate, nice and sweet, but not too, I think, but then very quickly a fruity smell starts to surface. WHOA! this is getting very strong fruity, very quickly. Is that the starfruit? For the first few minutes I thought it was kind of floral too, and I was afraid. but I guess it's just strong fruit.

 

drydown: that fruitiness is still there, overpowering all. i can smell the chocolate dancing around underneath, trying to fight its way in, but not much. there's a hint of vanilla too. but mostly i smell fruit-there's peach and a kind of melon smell. this is not a juicy or tart fruit, it's very sweet and melon-ish.

 

a bit later: hmm. the strong fruit has simmered down a bit but it's still so melon-y! i used to have a scented Honeydew oil that eventually made me sick, this is reminding me of it a bit. too sweet. i'm disappointed that it's not chocolatey on me. I'll give it some more time...

 

1/2 hour later: I don't think this is really working on me. I might give it another try at a different time of the month, or something...but so far I am disappointed.

[n0thing]

I've got imps of the previous 2 versions of 13 (the first one is absolute Sex, it's so gorgeous it's in the 'special occasions use only pile'. The second one is also absolutely lovely & i'll be gutted when it's gone, but not *quite* as astoundingly awesome as the first. I get white chocolate & lemon fondant fancies, basically. Byoootiful!), so ifugred i'd pounce on a bit of this, thought it'd be a safe bet. Would've gone for a bottle if i'd had any money at the time.

 

..and thank god i didn't! This year's version, although i hate to say it - without a doubt in the top 5 most horrible BPALs i've ever smelled! ..there's things i don't LIKE, but understand they just aren't me, and there's voodoo blends that smell decided unwearable, but may have their purposes. This though - eww nononNO, i couldn't see anyone getting on with ever (although obviously above reviews prove me wrong, or maybe mine was an odd batch..)

 

It smells of uber offensive artificial chocolate with a waft of bright, clashing artificial citrus. It reminds me of the stinky, over-sweet, cheap smelling Eyeko chocolate scent pen i used to have, but WORSE. And the smell took a lot of washing off. Definately no second trial for this one, it was a definate Nope.

 

Bugger. Wanted more of the old stuff

Edited August 19, 2007 by n0thing

[pekeana]

None of the other 13s have really, really worked for me, so this is me being shocked and surprised.

 

When I first put 13 on, it's all chocolate and peaches with just the barest hint of nutty-wood base. After a while, it just kind of melts into my skin and does its magic. Chocolate, and ginger peaches, and then eventually the peaches fade and the white chocolate (creamy milk & sugar vanilla) comes up and tangos with the honey and clove. And then it fades away to pure, undiluted honey.

 

So much happiness.

[Miss Lynx]

This sounded really good to me, and I've gotten all the previous 13s, so of course I had to order it. But on the whole... I'm underwhelmed.

 

I don't hate it or anything, I'm just not terribly impressed with it. Part of it, I think, is that as the versions of 13 multiply, each new one is starting to seem less unique and less interesting. Even though they've all got at least partially different notes. There's a growing sameness about them that I guess I'm getting a bit tired of.

 

When the second 13 came out, the first one to be reformulated, I initially really liked it, and thought it was better than the original. But later on I found it kind of dimmed for me and I still liked the original best. Ditto with the third. And with this one, I'm finding it hard to even keep straight what this and the second and third all smell like any more, because they're all kind of blending together for me into an amorphous category of "OK, but not as good as the first one was".

 

This one in particular starts out very floral, with only slight undertones of chocolate. Maybe it's my skin amping the orchid or something, or maybe there are other florals among the unlisted notes. I'm not picking up any cocoa absolute, though the slightly fake-smelling white chocolate note is there as a background presence. Hardly any spice, either. I think there's some fig -- it has that slightly funky wax-crayon type scent that fig can sometimes turn to on me. Eventually the florals fade a bit, and it's more fruity and slightly more chocolaty, but I never do get much ginger or clove from it, sadly.

 

And the overall experience -- well, if I'd never tried any other 13 before, I'd probably like it more, but as it stands, it's more like "Yep... Another 13. *sigh*"

 

I guess I'm getting kind of 13'ed-out. I hate to break a perfect record, but unless the next one sounds radically different, I probably won't order it, and I'm thinking I may need to do a comparative test of 2, 3 and 4 and decide which if any of them I actually need to keep.

 

Interestingly, though, our month-old baby seems to like it! Since his birth I usually only apply scents sparingly, and only on my wrists and arms, unless I'm going out and will be away from him for a while. But this morning I put a dab of it on my cleavage and neck like I always used to, before I thought about it. And when I next held the baby, rather than him being irritated by it, he pretty much did a face-plant directly into the area I'd applied it, and went contentedly to sleep with a little smile on his face. So maybe I should keep it around and put a dab on his bedding now and then...

 

Grade: B

[VenusFlyTrap]

This is a nice version of *13* that seemed particularly fruity to my nose.

 

I think it was the massoia having its merry morphing way with all the other components in this blend. There was a bit of a faint coconut like scent but without the sugar in it. It smells somewhat like a tropical fruit compote.

 

I do like this oil but one bottle is plenty for me!

Edited August 27, 2007 by VenusFlyTrap

[oedipa]

This is the 3rd bottle of 13 I've had the opportunity to be around for - the 1st (orange Oct '06) is OMGAMAZINGYUM, probably in my top 5, the second (purple April '07) smelled strongly of clove and bitter chocolate - blech, no thank you! So I swapped the second for this version.

 

I'll admit, the first time I tried it (just a wee bit on a wrist) I did not like it - I got a strong bark/clove smell with a fruity undertone that was no good. However, I let it sit for a couple of weeks and revisited it, and am I ever glad I did!

 

Wet on skin: Ugh, it's that nasty clove and bark combo. Must...wait...it...out!

 

5 minutes: Still rather nasty, but I'm beginning to get a more "spice" scent as opposed to overwhelming clove and the bark is starting to back off. Go for the burn!

 

30 minutes: Chocolate has come out to play! There's also a nice vanilla undertone and I imagine (though perhaps I'm wrong) that I can smell some faint whiffs of orchid.

 

2 hours +: Clove-spiced chocolate with sweet, almost honey-like undertones.

 

Overall, I'm glad I waited it out! This one's a keeper.