SolarEclipse

This Is what it sounds like - Immediately upon opening and application, it's a pucker-up of green right to the face. And while the similarity to squirting cucumber is there, that belongs to spring and summer. This is claimed by a hidden, lingering cool sweetness from the kiss of spearmint and the exotic touch of the mistletoe, keeping it firmly in winter's grasp. If you want a winter cucumber, this is it.

In prison Shadow had learned there were two kinds of fights: don’t fuck with me fights, where you made it as showy and impressive as you could, and private fights, real fights, which were fast and hard and nasty, and always over in seconds. “Hey, Sweeney,” said Shadow, breathless, “why are we fighting?” “For the joy of it,” said Sweeney, sober now, or at least, no longer visibly drunk. “For the sheer unholy fucken delight of it. Can’t you feel the joy in your own veins, rising like the sap in the springtime?” His lip was bleeding. So was Shadow’s knuckle. Whiskey, mead, honey, gold, sweat, and blood. This starts out wonderful. It's one hell of a boozy kick from the bottle, and sweetens up on application. Wet, it's a sweet scent, carrying the scent of drinks along with this. A few hours later on the skin, the scent has darkened to a leathery, coppery scent, the blood note bought out to play. The little I dabbed on the work collar of my shirt aged differently, maturing into a smokey spicy scent, bringing up visions of a smokey bar an hour before closing. Definitely one i'll reach for again and again!

This is an unexpected favorite. It opens with the dusty paper of an old favorite book long set aside and revisited after an age. Underneath it all is the sweet faint scent of tobacco, fragments of leaves trapped in between the pages and forgotten as you rolled a handmade cigarette. This became for me the scent for a subdued day, when you need some peace and quiet to rest a weary mind, and enjoy the subtle scent surrounding you.

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.

Fear of Parents-in-Law A scent of judgement and scorn: blackened vetiver, smug vanilla, and a dismissive, sneering dribble of black coffee. Nice to meet you, Mr. Soceraphobia. I can see where your daughter Europa gets her good qualities from. *awkward silence* *coughs* Just tried this scent out for work today, and it really does remind me of the Europa scent. Upon opening and trying out Soceraphobia, the most out in front note is the vetiver. The harshness is echoed with the coffee, which itself is barely noticable as a separate note. The vanilla underneath does give it a sweet, mellow flavor to it, but it is not nearly as pronounced as it is in Europa, although is it enough to make the connection. Vetiver remains in control throughout drydown, and although the scent fades in a few hours, every so often it re-emergers, lingering a bit only to fade again... Definitely a keeper for the days I want something a bit more subtle.

This was a frimp from an order made a few months ago, and from the get go it was a ride. In the imp, the orange note is overpowering. It definitely had a bite from the other notes in the background, but the orange conquered all. Wet, something very unusual happened. The orange and mint inside combined to make this smell like a orange toothpaste on me. Something my body chemistry amped up? Within the next 30 - 45 minutes, during the drydown, the cloves and other notes ramped up, and I got wafts of a warm, masculine scent following me around, but sniffing my arms, I still got the toothpaste smell? This smell is maddening. The orange / mint soon fade entirely, and what remained was a heat, a spicy musk that followed me around all day, and having one of the most intense and lengthy durations, this scent is going to be a full bottle order the next time around!