Thirteen: 13 March 2026

[doomsday_disco]

This month, I experimented with a new sub-concept for 13: Friday the 13th in a forgotten library, with 13 notes that evoke the search for lost stories and the desperate drive to preserve knowledge before it fades into oblivion. Cacao threaded through yellowed paper, cracked leather bindings, spilled ink, black tea, tobacco leaf, cedar shelves, black mahogany, violin bow resin, clove bud, incense smoke, coffee bean, papyrus, and myrrh.

 

 

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?

_ _ _

 

Since 2026 contains a whopping THREE Friday-the-13ths (Fridays-the-13th?) we’ve decided to call in some misfortune-warding reinforcements. Each version of this year’s 13 perfume oil will be accompanied by its own bonus luck charm: a free 1/32oz imp of an original perfume oil inspired by lucky finds from our seasonal crossroads wanderings.

 

Those who collect all three will end up with a veritable bracelet’s worth of lucky charms to treasure and wear as needed!

 

March’s charm: FORSAKEN ELEPHANT PUPPET (review thread located here).

Edited March 20 by doomsday_disco

[Claire-of-the-Valley]

This starts out as a nice mix of notes with the cacao as a solid base, but quickly dissolves into what I think is the yellowed paper note. Kind of sour, musty, bordering on moldy. Not great. I keep expecting the library-style scents to work for me, and they almost never do, so I should probably stay away from the more paper-y, incense-y notes from BPAL on the whole.

[Frills]

I love this one. It's very evocative, and I actually do get dusty books as a top note. As it dries it smells like tea and reminds me of something I smelled in a dream. I might need another bottle of this one.

[Muffin]

Think I finally found my dream book scent! I've tried Evening Reading (dry and leathery), and Dee (I like a lot - but very leathery). This one is evocative of the experience of a late night read more than smelling like a BOOK. Cacao at first, dries down a bit brighter - I agree with the tea mentioned above. The leather, paper, and ink are all there but the cacao keeps it warm and smooth. Very nice, kind of sexy actually. 

[Mergekat]

So on one hand I feel really bad for the above Claire, but I totally agree with Muffin's response here. I was afraid the cacao and clove would dominate as in the bottle, but they are actually playing really nice on skin with all the written notes (and I do get the tea). But it's not overbearing, because it's playing well with all the papery and wood notes that are combined in it. To my perspective, it's beautifully smooth and dry with this aged paper and ink in the notes, and this dare I say, lingering nostalgia of a book space lost to time. A bookstore that was quirky that you went into and now you can't find anymore. It's finding out that one of the most beautiful libraries in the U.S.A., the old Main Cincinnati Library, existed from 1874-1955 and yet was totally demolished (America, please save your darn aesthetically pleasing architecture). It's reading Connie Willis's book, I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land and going through its bookstore facade cover to a secret library's catacomb levels in New York City to see forgotten books. It's not quite ancient, it's not quite refined, but it is something entirely in between and its own thing. If you can see it, that is one of the photos of the old Main Cincinnati Library with its stacks upon stacks of shelving and books. It was intended at first to be an opera house, but finances turned its finished product into an elaborate library. 

 

*I tried to post on the actual Black Phoenix website. But for some reason, it just gave me the runaround of saying, I was supposed to log in when I was already logged in. And then it wouldn't let me leave a review there, unlike if I went to another scent's listing.😅

Edited 2 hours ago by Mergekat