Thirteen (13): April 2018

[Joyleaf_]

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?

Dark chocolate infused with thirteen protective herbs and offerings to keep capricious spirits at bay: red wine, Spanish moss, yarrow, black sage, coconut meat, nutmeg, black clove, caraway, allspice, archangel, crushed acorn, marshmallow root, and mullein.

I was so excited for this scent, mainly because I just got married on the 13th! It was a lovely day full of love and sunshine (the only day we've had with sun and 80 degree weather thus far) and I was delighted to pick this up for a special wedding-day-blend.
I am not usually a 13 lover, as I don't really love chocolate, but luckily, this chocolate note is non-existent on my skin. This 13 is wine-heavy, lush and dark and fruity with a small smattering of herbs in the background. It smells like Mabon in my coven when we make a huge pot of mulled wine, actually. Pleasant and sweet, but much more of an autumnal scent for me.This has ample throw and is quite strong, almost headache inducing, so apply lightly! I love it because of the sentiment attached and the scent memory of good friends and good food in the late summer moonlight.

 

I will definitely keep the bottle.

[VioletChaos]

The red wine note is very prominent in the bottle and when first applied. As it warms, some of the spicy notes get released a bit, notably allspice and clove, giving it a vibe similar to a rich head shop-y incense, rather than a "spiced wine" effect as I had assumed it would be. The chocolate is also entirely absent, which I'm a bit disappointed about- I'd hoped for a Tzenzon Tchotochin variation, but this, as the previous post noted, is more of a spicy autumnal scent. I agree that the throw is intense- I applied *very* lightly from the cap, and it seems to be the right amount for the job.

Honestly, this might be too heavy for me to wear, even in fall. OTOH, this will make an *excellent* room fragrance, come October.

[Aveya]

Source: Lab Blind-buy ; Label is song birds. Super cute.

Preconceptions: Flipping love the 13s. They're never quite the same, but I've had some life-long favorites come from them. So have to roll the dice every time. This time; hoping for mulled wine.

 

Bottle sniff: Thick, goopy wine with a hint of chocolate spice.

Wet on Skin: Brief splash of chocolate then VANISH - nothing.

Drydown: So this is the weirdest scent I've reviewed. Usually you can shove your nose into skin and inhale every intimate detail of the scent. NOT THIS TIME. This has like 10% of the scent on my skin, and 90% in the air 3 feet from my skin... Weird one.

 

So in skin, it's a gentle herbal spice blend.

In air? and remember I get none of this from my skin itself so it feels like floating magic - it's all red mulled spiced wine. Noseferatu wine, mulled with some new 13 spices. The throw is amazing - I just walk through a hallway, do some stuff, walk back through the hallway and am like OH HI WINE. It's not thick and gloopy wine, it's rich and mulled spice. I swear a hint of creaminess to it as well? Any chocolate in this scent is participating as a spice, and not a main note.

 

Verdict: Beautiful mulled wine with insane magical throw. Crazy staying power.

 

Edit to add : Wore to work today; it lasted 4-5 hours of mulled wine spices then faded back to a skin scent for the rest of the day.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Aveya

[doomsday_disco]

In the decant: This 13 is really strong on the Lab’s red wine note. Behind it, I can smell the dark chocolate and the Spanish moss.

 

Wet: Mulled wine, moss, and just a bit of dark chocolate.

 

Dry: I tend to amp the Lab’s red wine note, as well as spices, so I’m not surprised that this smells mostly like mulled wine on me. I can smell a lot of caraway now (alas!), and the moss is still a main player, but it’s calmed down a little from when it was freshly applied.

 

After several hours of wear, it’s a curious combo of red wine, moss, spices, and just a hint of coconut.

 

Verdict: This one is way too strong on the red wine for me. And it has some throw, too! I wish I had gotten the marshmallow root from this, as well as more chocolate. I like how the spices make it more like a mulled wine, though. If that’s your thing, you may want to obtain some of this and wine up!

[zankoku_zen]

Delicate red wine, coconut, chocolate, and spices. There's also the marshmallow root coming out at the very end of the drydown. It's a very muted spiced wine/coconut blend. Medium throw and wear length.

[Lucchesa]

The chocolate is not the top note for me in 13 April 2018 the way it is in most 13s. This is more of an herbal mulled wine blend on me, with maybe some soft sweet marshmallow coconut emerging in drydown. I don't get the crazy throw some other reviewers have mentioned, but that's my middle-aged skin for you. It's nice -- definitely comforting -- and I'm delighted that I got a chance to try it, but red wine is not a note I wear very often.

Edited January 9, 2019 by Lucchesa
Spelling

[torischroeder9]

In the decant: Chocolate with red wine coming to the forefront. I can detect a heavy spice, which might be either the clove and/or the allspice, as well as a rounder sweet note, which might either be the coconut and/or the marshmallow. 

 

On my skin:

 

Wet, the red wine jumps to the top of my skin though it steps back pretty fast to let the chocolate take its place. Within a moment, it settles down to chocolate and muddled spices (not unpleasant, just difficult to discern individual notes). It continues to morph during its first dry moments on my skin. The coconut makes an appearance, then recedes, leaving spiced chocolate again.

 

Now there is a positively minty smell coming from my skin. This, in turn, continues to morph and develop over a few minutes until it's almost like eucalyptus. It's not as strong, either in scent strength or in throw, but the quality of the note is similar. (Some quick Googling suggests mullein might be the note most responsible for this. I also wouldn't put it past the red wine note, which tends to go to vinegar on my skin, to be playing up this aspect of the blend.) 

 

Minutes later, the whole blend starts to fade away.... 

 

Edit, 1 hour later -- It doesn't quite disappear. The eucalyptus smell does disappear entirely. It's replaced by a very soft marshmallow scent with a very low throw. Like, I have to put my nose basically touching my arm to smell it -- but it is there. 

Edited January 9, 2019 by torischroeder9

[Juliamon]

Found a long-lost decant of this earlier today as I was looking for something entirely different, so as I was not one to pass on such a fortuitous event, I decided to give it a go.

 

This opens right away with sweet red wine, though thankfully not so sweet as to be cloying as this note can sometimes be. Right behind it is a complicated blend of herbs and spices, with very few I can pick out (clove being the most prominent by just a bit). If I concentrate I can get a whiff of chocolate, but it (along with the coconut meat) is fleeting and not a note I would mention if someone asked what I was wearing. The sweet note is separating itself out from the wine and becoming a bit powdery as it dries down, I think it must be the marshmallow. The overall effect for me is, as Aveya helpfully pointed out, like Nosferatu with extra herbs, and unlike Nosferatu it actually lasts on my skin longer than a moment! It's still not a terribly long-lasting blend and I think it would have made for a great atmo spray, but I'll be holding onto this decant regardless--and putting it somewhere less likely to get lost this time!

[torikitty]

This smells great in the bottle. Like wine, maybe some chocolate. I agree that there's some similar notes from Tzenzon Tchotochin, spicy and herbal like that. And something that smells a bit like the leather in Perversion. Unfortunately, there's something in here that goes to oud on me, not sure which note. Not super cat pee, but something that sticks around and overpowers the wine notes.