Le Labo — Another 13
Essence
Another 13 is the synthetic-musk monolith that became Le Labo’s quiet bestseller-a sleek, addictive Ambroxan-and-Iso E Super skin scent with a brief pear-apple flicker on top and an ambrette-jasmine murmur in the heart. Created in 2010 as a 500-bottle Colette x AnOther Magazine limited release, it was never intended as a permanent product and only entered the classic collection after Colette’s 2017 closure. It is the canonical example of “clean magazine-paper musk” and one of the defining ambroxan-driven niche fragrances of the 2010s.
Scent Profile
The first thirty seconds are deceptively quiet: a faint, slightly metallic citrus-pear lift that on some skin reads almost like dryer sheets and on others like the glossy ink of a freshly printed magazine. Within five to ten minutes, the synthetic backbone settles in and never really leaves. Cetalox and ambrettolide do the heavy lifting up front-Cetalox providing the dry, mineral, salty-amber sheen often described as “clean skin radiating heat,” and ambrettolide adding the warmer, slightly fruity-musky animalic curl that keeps it from going entirely sterile. Iso E Super hangs over the whole structure as a velvety, woody-transparent halo; Helvetolide contributes the soft, pear-skin-fluffy facet that makes the fragrance feel cottony rather than chrome. The mid stage, from roughly thirty minutes to three hours, is the fragrance’s plateau. Ambrette seed surfaces as a quiet, fatty-fruity musk in the center; amyl salicylate provides a barely-there clean-laundry floral wash; jasmine is more idea than note, lending a faint indolic shadow rather than a recognizable white floral; oakmoss reads as a dry green ground rather than chypre-style bitterness.
Performance
Projection is light to moderate-closer than people expect from a fragrance with this much Ambroxan, typically six to eighteen inches in the first hour, then close to the skin. Sillage is intimate but persistent; a wearer leaves a faint Ambroxan ribbon in elevators and on collars. Skin longevity runs eight to twelve hours for most wearers, with the synthetic base detectable for fourteen-plus on those with chemistry that holds Iso E Super. On clothing, Another 13 is extraordinary-three to seven days is common, and many wearers say the fragrance smells better the next morning on a shirt than it did at hour one.
Wearing Context
All-season but most flattering in cool to mild weather-spring, autumn, mild winter, air-conditioned summer. Strong daytime fragrance for office, travel, gym-to-meeting, and evening pre-game. It works in close-quarters social settings (date night, dinner with friends) where its skin-scent intimacy reads as expensive minimalism rather than absence. It falls flat in two contexts: blazing humid heat, where the Ambroxan can read sharply chemical or hairspray-adjacent and where wearer anosmia leaves you over-spraying; and large formal occasions where projection matters more than presence.
Comparisons & DNA
Inside Le Labo: Bergamote 22 shares the same musky-Ambroxan base layer under a citrus top, and many wearers describe Another 13 as Bergamote 22 stripped of its citrus and amplified. Ambrette 9 is its quieter, fruitier predecessor in the house lineup. Santal 33 sits at the opposite extreme-smoky leather instead of clean magazine paper. Direct cross-brand comparators: Juliette Has a Gun Not a Perfume is essentially Cetalox solo and reads as a stripped-down Another 13 cousin at a much lower price.
Reception
Consensus is broadly positive and unusually persistent-Another 13 has stayed on most-popular and most-talked-about lists since roughly 2016 and is widely treated as Le Labo’s best-selling Classic Collection scent alongside Santal 33 and The Noir 29. Praise centers on its addictive cleanness, the “smells like expensive skin” effect, its extraordinary cloth longevity, and the way it generates compliments without announcing itself. Criticism centers on the synthetic intensity (some describe the opening as metallic, hairspray-like, or Lysol-adjacent, and the line “Lysol sprayed on your face” is widely quoted), the anosmia problem, and the perception that it is essentially Cetalox plus pear at a heavy markup. Polarization axis: those who love synthetic minimalism love it; those who want naturals, complexity, or olfactive event reject it.
Versions & Reformulation
Originally a 500-bottle limited edition individually numbered, available only at Colette in Paris and at a handful of partner doors (Barneys, Isetan, Liberty) for its first months. After Colette’s December 2017 closure, Le Labo absorbed Another 13 into the permanent Classic Collection in 2018. Available as EDP and as a perfume oil, plus body lotion and shower gel as part of the standard line. The perfume oil performs longer and softer on skin; the EDP is the canonical reference.
Acquisition Notes
Niche Pricing bracket. EDP available in 15 ml, 50 ml, 100 ml, and 500 ml; perfume oil in roll-on; body products at parallel price points.
Notable Facts & Lore
- Sarah Andelman of Colette initiated the project, connecting Le Labo’s Fabrice Penot with Jefferson Hack of AnOther Magazine to express the magazine’s minimalist, modernist editorial sensibility.
- The original 2010 release was 500 individually numbered bottles, never intended as a permanent product, sold at Colette in Paris with limited distribution at Barneys, Isetan, and Liberty.
- It entered the permanent Classic Collection only after Colette’s closure in December 2017.
- In a 2020 anniversary conversation, Penot said its “success is hard to define” and expressed his own surprise that the limited run became a bestseller.
- It became one of the canonical “fashion-girl signature scents” of the late 2010s through social media, with no traditional advertising behind it.
- Its “clean skin / expensive laundry” coding made it a recurring reference in fashion journalism on the “quiet luxury” trend.
- The composition is widely credited to Nathalie Lorson at Firmenich, though Le Labo’s house policy is not to publicly name perfumers.