Thirteen (13): January 2017

[SolarEclipse]

13 is significant, whether you consider it lucky, unlucky or just plain odd. Many believe it to be unfortunate...
...because there were 13 present at the Last Supper.
...Loki crashed a party of 12 at Valhalla, which ended in Baldur's death.
...Oinomaos killed 13 of Hippodamia's suitors before Pelops finally, in his own shady way, defeated the jealous king.
...In ancient Rome, Hecate's witches gathered in groups of 12, the Goddess herself being the 13th in the coven.
Concern over the number thirteen echoes back beyond the Christian era. Line 13 was omitted form the Code of Hammurabi.
The shivers over Friday the 13th also have some interesting origins:
...Christ was allegedly crucified on Friday the 13th.
...On Friday, October 13, 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the arrests of Jaques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and sixty of his senior knights.
...In British custom, hangings were held on Fridays, and there were 13 steps on the gallows leading to the noose.
To combat the superstition, Robert Ingersoll and the Thirteen Club held thirteen-men dinners during the 19th Century. Successful? Hardly. The number still invokes trepidation to this day. A recent whimsical little serial killer study showed that the following murderers all have names that total thirteen letters:
Theodore Bundy
Jeffrey Dahmer
Albert De Salvo
John Wayne Gacy
And, with a little stretch of the imagination, you can also fit "Jack the Ripper" and "Charles Manson" into that equation.
More current-era paranoia: modern schoolchildren stop their memorization of the multiplication tables at 12. There were 13 Plutonium slugs in the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. Apollo 13 wasn't exactly the most successful space mission. All of these are things that modern triskaidekaphobes point to when justifying their fears.
For some, 13 is an extremely fortuitous and auspicious number...
...In Jewish tradition, God has 13 Attributes of Mercy. Also, there were 13 tribes of Israel, 13 principles of Jewish faith, and 13 is considered the age of maturity.
...The ancient Egyptians believed that there were 12 stages of spiritual achievement in this lifetime, and a 13th beyond death.
...The word for thirteen, in Chinese, sounds much like the word which means "must be alive".
Thirteen, whether you love it or loathe it, is a pretty cool number all around.
...In some theories of relativity, there are 13 dimensions.
...It is a prime number, lucky number, star number, Wilson Prime, and Fibonacci number.
...There are 13 Archimedean solids.
AND...
...There were 13 original colonies when the United States were founded.
Says a lot about the US, doesn't it?

You can't always prevent misfortune, but you can face it with courage, grace, strength and good humor. This is a blend of thirteen enlivening, bolstering, cheerful, strengthening oils against a backdrop of dark chocolate: Himalayan cedar, clove bud, champaca resin, ginger root, lemon peel, Madagascan vanilla, golden honey, High John the Conqueror root, black tobacco, oak leaf, saffron, smoky patchouli, and cognac.

Opening the bottle for the 1st time, I was immediately struck by a delicious creamy chocolate scent. After applying it and letting it warm up, it immediately morphed into a wonderfully complex incense scent. Reminiscent of both Thirteen: February 2009 and Moons of Jupiter: Himalia, it remains it's own unique blend, a sweet, faintly smoky resinous smell that lingers and gradually reappears and sweetens throughout the day. Love this scent.

[suki]

I have had mixed luck with 13 blends in the past, but the notes in this one sounded too intriguing to pass up. Here goes!

 

In The Bottle: The black tobacco is STRONG. Definitely the primary note here. the chocolate is there, but it's in the back, and it's kind of a thin chocolate, by which I mean not milky or creamy or like strong dark chocolate either. Like watered-down (without the water note).

 

Wet On Skin: The cedar, high john and ginger have joined forces with the tobacco to create something *very* dark and *very* earthy. I hope this mellows some, because right now it might be too strong for me to wear...

 

Dry Down: Ah, the saffron and patchouli are at least saying hello. The chocolate has left the building and what remains is a very rich, down n dirty scent. Sometimes I can't get tobacco to stay put, and this, unfortunately, seems to be one of those times. I'll give it a chance to settle and age for a bit, but this might have to be re-hommed by someone who is more in love with strong tobacco than I.

[gloame]

First sniff: spicy tobacco. The same warm cedar as in Tombstone comes out pretty quickly, but the tobacco stays throughout. Just like Tombstone, I get a freshly shaved pencil vibe at first, but that fades and then it's just lovely. The honey and vanilla keeps it soft and warm. The lemon peel gives it a kick. This is a beautiful, lovely scent. So glad I finally picked up a bottle.

 

ETA Where I'd wear this: When you need both luck and confidence

Edited July 15, 2017 by gloame

[Wwindy]

I smell like a hippie dipped in dark chocolate!!!

 

Seriously, it's like someone took a stick of very warm, rich, tobacco-shaded incense and dunked it in chocolate like a Pocky. Most of the other notes blend together pretty thoroughly on my skin, but I can pick out the saffron (one of my favorite Lab notes), cedar, and patchouli, with hints of champaca and honey smoothing everything out. I'm not getting any particularly noticeable lemon, vanilla, or cognac.

 

I'm not normally keen on foodie or sweet scents, but took a chance on this based on all the incense-y elements, and as it turns out chocolate-dipped hippie is *scrumptious*. I love this 13!

[Blood onmy hands]

I'm glad that I just went with a decant of this one. I was really tempted by the dark chocolate, vanilla, clove, tobacco and patchouli, but those notes aren't present for me. I get a hint of dark chocolate and then mostly ginger, honey and a hint of lemon. Honey notes can sometimes smell a bit urine-like on my skin, and the honey here is doing that. It's sort of sickly-sweet. The ginger reminds me of ginger cookies.

Faint ginger cookies and sickly honey with a weird undertone of salty corn chips.
This Thirteen is super light on me.
I can only smell it if I hover my nose about an inch above my skin, and it fades away entirely before it hits the half hour mark.

Edited February 13, 2017 by Little Bird

[zankoku_zen]

Tobacco, high john the conqueror, patchouli, and ginger on top of a bed of bitter dark chocolate. This smells like it should belong in a voodoo shop. This isn't eating chocolate. This is magical chocolate. The kind that you buy, throw in big chunks to appease a deity, and hope that its powerful enough to keep them at bay. Medium throw and wear length.

 

I'd put this up there as a potential TAL blend.