Thirteen (13): March 2009

[Mechanical Death]

This 13, created by Brian Constantine, is a sign of the times, illustrating chaos and hope, and strength during adversity. Bittersweet dark cocoa is surrounded here by 13 complex aspects, including exotic musks, caraway, allspice, aloes wood, lucky hand, Irish moss, and bamboo. Beneath it all is a glowing core of glistening cherry.

 

In the bottle it smells very heavily of chocolate and boozy cherries. There's something else wet there, I think it's the moss I'm picking up on.

On the skin in quickly turns into tootsie rolls. Omg, cherry tootsie rolls... Which, if you like candy scents it's not bad. But first on the skin the chocolate amps up and you smell like candy.

As it dries the outright chocolate lolipop smell fades more to the background. The boozy chocolate smell swirls around you, but on the skin it becomes damp, woody, spicy, with a dark chocolate undertone. The cherry is still there but it's not overpowering. It's quite lovely.
As the day goes on the swirling chocolate fades a bit which I prefer, leaving the spiciness and the wet woodiness. I like this a lot as it ages on my skin.

Can't wait to try some other 13s, perhaps I'll jump on the next one.

[LavenderCoffee]

I always feel like a time traveler popping in to review something aged over 10 years. This one is AMAZING. If you have one of these hidden away in a drawer somewhere go sniff it!

Still very much a rich chocolate cherry in the bottle, but I didn't smell the bottle first - I just popped a drop of it onto my wrist, and when the scent hit my brain I could have SWORN it was a Snake Oil variant! Perhaps they have some exotic musks in common, and the sweetness of the chocolate cherry steps in where the vanilla would be. The aloeswood/oud brings a deliciously slinky darkness and depth. I don't usually go for a cherry, but this is my kind of cherry, and I'm tremendously pleased to have this.