El Día de los Reyes 2013

"The Day of Kings, the Celebration of the Magi. In Mexico, on January 6th, children place their shoes by their windows. If they have been good during the previous year, the Wise Men tuck gifts into their shoes during the night.”

This is much like our Dutch celebration of Sinterklaas at December 5th. One generation before me children placed their shoes at the chimney and if they had been good Sinterklaas would fill the shoes with gifts. But when homes had less and less working chimneys this changed into the gifts appearing in a different way on the evening of the 5th of December.

Scentwise, El Día de los Reyes is a Black Phoenis Alchemy Lab scent that appears for the third time in the Yule release.  I did not have a chance to try the 2007 or 2009 version, but I did get a decant of El Día de los Reyes 2013. Although the notes in the description remained the same, Hot cocoa with cinnamon, coffee, and brown sugar, it seems to be different from previous years. Most reviews of those years speak of a hot chocolate scent. This year's version does indeed has a lush chocolate smell from the decant and wet on the skin, but when it dried the first time I tried it I got nothing but brown sugar. Until I realized I had put on very little, as chocolate scents often go to plastic on me. I reapplied and got another waft of delicious chocolate which soon disappeared to leave the stage for coffee and sugar with perhaps a bit of cinnamon. I had more or less contented myself with the thought that apparently my skin liked the cocoa so much it ate it all as soon as possible, when I reapplied a third time because I had lost much of the scent dishwashing. It can't be coincidence, three kings, three applications, the third time the cocoa note stayed on me, not very strong but after three hours it's still there. Thank you, Kings, for this wonderful gift. I must have been good in the past year!