Thirteen (13): October 2017

[suki]

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?

During this distinctly ill-omened time, we’ve constructed a scent comprised of thirteen comforting, soothing notes, including three chocolates, coffee husk, molasses, smoked sugar cane, rum absolute, almond, cozy cardamom, black sage, coconut meat, red benzoin, and bourbon vanilla pod.

In The Bottle: A spiced Mexican chocolate plus coffee and molasses. This is off to an EXCELLENT start!

Wet On Skin: The bourbon vanilla comes out, mixing with the chocolate, to create a decadent, very adult version of a black-and-white milkshake, sans the dairy. Mmmmmmmmm.

Dry Down: The chocolate becomes more of the soft and dusky semi-sweet variety that I've come to worship in Cacao Pod. In fact, now that it's dried, I'd say this is a close cousin of Cacao Pod, but with hints of dry, dark vanilla and coffee in the background.

 

In All: I frequently get 13 scents and frequently wind up trading them away because inevitably something turns on my skin. But this one is n absolute keeper. PERFECT dry cocoa scent!

[sacrilicious]

There was no way I wasn't going to get this. October 13 this year was my first wedding anniversary, and seriously it's like this scent was tailor-made for me. Literally every single note is a LOVE note for me.

 

Wet: I get a whiff of the coconut first that fades quickly into vanilla and benzoin. It reads as rich and creamy without being overtly sweet.

 

Dry Down: The coffee comes out to play, deepened by the molasses and sugar cane.

 

In All: This is LOVELY. I've lost my taste for the really super sweet foodie perfumes in the last couple years, but this manages to have foody and sweet notes without smelling like a sugar bomb at all. So glad I got two bottles!

[torikitty]

Wet: Chocolate, sugar, bourbon, hint of coffee. Delicious. Reminds me a chocolately version of year's past Pumpkin Latte. I think the ginger/molasses note really adds something nice to this.

 

Drydown doesn't seem like much is changing. Maybe the heavy sugar lifts, and the coffee slowly wafts away. Just a nice cocoa note. I don't think I would compare it to Cocoa Pod, but it's a nice companion.

[roseus]

Very comforting scent. In the bottle I get cocoa, with coffee, almond, and rum primarily. Wet it's a dry cocoa with coffee, vanilla, and cardamom. It gets sweeter and creamier as it dries down and the notes harder to distinguish. Sweet, creamy chocolate with a bit of coffee is mainly what I get. Absolutely delicious!

[VetchVesper]

This is the first 13 that called to me so irresistibly that I was forced to answer with my wallet. It's perdy good.

 

Boozy, dark syrupy chocolate in the bottle. I can smell the almond and it comes across almost like maraschino cherry. I'm thinking, chocolate covered cherries, with all the yummy syrup and gooey sugar center.

 

The coconut is more prominent on my skin. There's still plenty of gooey chocolate though. I THINK I might detect some sage and cardamom in the background just adding a little complexity, but this is very much a CHOCOLATE dessert sort of scent on me, which is fine. That's what I was wanting. This makes me think of Almond Joys now, and I know, b/c I ate a ton of em this Halloween.

 

Oooo... okay... dry down, I'm starting to get some coffee. Had my doubts, but there it is. More coconut mocha. Mmmmmm....

 

Overall, I'm pretty happy. It only lasts a couple hours on my skin, but it lasts on my clothes a good bit longer. I'm curious to see what it will do after it's had a few months to settle, if the louder notes will mellow and I'll get some more subtle undertones.

 

A nice alternative dessert scent if baked goods notes down' work on you. A fancy and schmancified Bliss.

[milo]

Starts off deep fake chocolate with dried fruit. Ends up powdered fake chocolate. FAIL.

[puellacaerulea]

This is the first 13 I've gotten, and it seems like it was a good choice. In the bottle, I mostly get the chocolate, coconut, and almond notes. Once it's on, my skin really amps the coconut and almond, but it eventually settles down to a pleasant, slightly nutty dry cocoa scent. Sweet and foody, but definitely wearable.

[The Forest Floor]

This is the first 13 I've bought since I started collecting a little over 2 years ago. I didn't think much of it when it went up on the site, but I got to sniff it at Dirty South Lunacy and it won me over at first whiff, and continued to work wonders on my skin.

This was intended to be comforting, soothing, and cozy, and it really hits the mark. I find that most of the notes are melded and blended into each other so well that I have a hard time picking out a lot of the individual components, but I do get a soft dry cocoa, vanilla, I smell a wee bit of of coffee, and perhaps white chocolate? It's warm and soft and delicately sweet, it's not really candy-sweet, more naturally sweet.

The three or four times I've worn or tested it so far, it seems to fade within a few hours, but those are a lovely few hours! And that helps make it a great scent to wear for a cozy night in, curled up in your PJs for some reading or TV and winding down those few hours before bed, or to inspire sweet dreams for drifting off to sleep.

[zankoku_zen]

Dusty chocolate, coconut, cardamom and sugar cane. This one is sweet tropical coconutty chocolate. Medium throw and wear length.

[theseagrows]

i dunno, i'm usually not a foody person, but this spoke to me. i guess i need the comfort! it starts off with booze and coffee..kind of smells like an irish coffee. then i get some almond and coconut. praying the coconut doesn't completely take over as it often does. after a few more minutes i think i get molasses. there is definitely chocolate in here but it's not too strong. at this point it's mostly coffee and cardamom. i rarely wear foody scents but i could see reaching for this on a cold winter's day when i just don't wanna get out of bed, until it turns plasticky like most foody scents do. oh well...

Edited November 16, 2017 by theseagrows

[LadyLuckless]

You know those boxes of assorted chocolates everyone's parents put out during the holidays? This is that in a bottle! Very yummy and comforting, I think this will be a usual Christmastime scent for me.

[LizziesLuck]

This 13 is like a collection of some of my fave notes: cardamom, coffee, coconut, rum, benzoin, vanilla, sugar.....all notes I adore!! And the rest are ones I at least like, so obviously I had to give this a go.

 

Wet: Mmm, this reminds me of a chocolate coffee liqueur. Yum. It's cozy, comforting - immediately a familiar scent. (Don't judge, everyone likes a spiked coffee once in a while.... )

 

 

Dry: Very nice! Soft chocolate, rum, hints of coconut. There's something comforting about it. I may already have too many chocolate scents, but I think I can make room for this one in my collection...

[LiberAmoris]

I took a look at the notes for this Thirteen and it was the quickest blind buy ever. This is like my dream liquor: coconut-coffee-chocolate-almond-vanilla. Well ok, that might be a bit too busy for a liquor, but it’s heavenly in a perfume. This smells like Cacao Pod went on a bender, and I am here for it.

[Lucchesa]

I had this in my cart. And then for some reason I hesitated, and it was gone. What was I thinking?? There is not a single note here that’s even a question mark. They are all win. Cardamom, almond, coffee, coconut. I was thrilled to be offered a decant in a swap, and yep, it is just about perfect. All the chocolate, the coconut, the almond —seconding VetchVesper on the Almond Joy thing. The cardamom and coffee are kind of comforting background noise. Good throw, and I rarely get throw. Just, agh, going to find a corner to weep in now.