Jack

[slythwitch]

The scent of warm, glowing jack o’lanterns on a warm autumn night: true Halloween pumpkin, spiced with nutmeg, glowing peach and murky clove.

Mmm... I'm disappointed I never got to try the famous Samhain limited edition oil, but Jack is pretty amazing.

It smells exactly like spiced pumpkin bread. It goes on very sweet and heavy, and lightens up and the spices come through more as time wears on. Even after a whole day, it was still perceptable.

One warning -- it is extremely strong to begin with. Just opening the bottle scented my room for an hour or so. I would recommend applying it extremely sparingly.

It's a very food-y smell as well. I like that, personally, because to me pumpkin breads and pies smell delicious. But I am hoping Elizabeth will make another scent that's Autumn but more nature and less food.

That said, I adore this scent and will probably be ordering a 5ml in my next pilgrimage.

EDIT: Added Lab's description --Shollin

[mherb]

I have to agree. This scent is delicious. Very much a comforting food type of smell. A hint of buttery rum mixed with pumpkin bread. I will be getting a 5ml. of this as well.

[Koumori]

This wasn't a success for me. I love pumpkin and all orange food so much, and was so excited that BPAL was putting out a pumpkin scent, that I immediately bought a 5mL bottle without getting a sample first. This was a mistake, and I won't be buying any other fragrances "smell unsmelled" again. I wanted to like it, I really did, but I felt that it smelled too synthetic for my taste - like a pumpkin-scented Yankee Candle.

[red_jezebel]

This scent makes me have two opposite reactions.

 

Initially, for a few seconds, I love it (spicy, warm and definitely very foody - seasoned pumpkin)... and then almost immediately afterwards something else kicks in (starts to have an slight smell of smelly socks to me! :oops: ) and I cant get the lid on fast enough

 

This is the only one I've smelt so far that I really cannot abide. I'm so sorry Elizabeth. Nasty nose of mine. :oops:

[grrrlennyl]

at first: this is really nice. foody, but nice. it smells exactly like pumpkin pie to me. i can't wait to wear it.

 

on: fabulous. smells just like pumpkin pie on.

 

1/2 hour later: the nutmeg is coming forward more. the scent has faded quite a bit.

 

4 hours later: still fabulous. spicy and pumpkin-y. i love it. my girlfriend says it smells like xmas. i think it was just my nose before, because i can really smell it now.

 

overall: i got 5ml of this (for free from a fabulous forumite) and i will probably be buying 10ml. lovely. it goes really well with lush's chai, potion, and ginger dusting powder.

[jj_j]

I was definitely spoiled by Samhain, and put Jack aside for months before trying it.

 

Jack does indeed have a glowing, slightly smoky, warm wax and pumpkin innard smell, along with scrumptious dessert bread being baked nearby.

 

I still prefer Samhain, although the interesting smoky and wax notes are lots of fun. You could call this the little brother of Samhain, though, as it's a definite version of autumn and triggers many of the same feelings Samhain does.

[Ina Garten Davita]

This is pure Autumn in New England. So much so it made me homesick.

I'm saving this one for Halloween Night!

[Skindiver]

Well I got this with my SO in mind. It fit that warm spicy scent I was looking for, that smells wonderful on him.

He has people stopping him all the time when he wears it to tell him " You smell so good" and a few women have even come up while we have been out and told him he smells yummy which he bushes deeply and does the " well my girlfriend think so too".

 

It is pure Autumn with the smell of pumpkin pies, with a crisp touch to it in a bottle.

[Donnababe]

This kind of scent is out of my usual 'comfort zone but I was offered this in a swap so thought I'd try it.

 

Oh dear. I couldn't even get beyond the Sniff Test It's very very spicy and far too heady for my tastes. It's exactly what the description says but it's far too strong for me.

 

I have the same problem with March Hare too.

[desida]

Just got my imp of this. I thought for SURE that I'd love it - the description is pretty much everything I like in a fragrance - and was considering buying a 5mL of this unsmelled before deciding against it.

 

Thank God I did. I put a dab of this on and was SO overwhelmed by how strong and sharp this was that I actually almost threw up, even after frantically scrubbing it off. This didn't smell at all like pumpkin to me, or like anything sweet, just sharp, sharp spice. I just opened the imp again to try to give it another chance for this review, and the nausea came back right away. A little oil got on my fingers, and even after another very thorough scrubbing, with lots of heavily-scented soap, the smell still won't go away. I seriously just had to spend ten minutes sitting with my head between my knees, praying that I wouldn't throw up, and I'm afraid to let my fingers anywhere near my face in case I get another whiff. I've loved BPAL and the scents I've tried so far, but I've never had such a strong reaction to a perfume before. Yikes.

[Hallows_Eve]

In the bottle- a lot like the pumpkin cinnimon soaps that Bath and Body Works would have around Halloween. Which I would stock up on in hope of lasting me for a year. Jack has more of an outdoor fall camping feel to it though. It had a distinctive cooking smell.

 

On me- A little went the whole day. I put some on at 8a and it was still fragrant at 6p. It meshed well with my natural body scent. My husband certainly likes it on me. Its smells more jack-lantern with lit candles now then pumpkin pie.

 

Definate one for my big bottle wish list.

[MissAnthropy]

Definate one for my big bottle wish list.

D I T T O.

 

And let me say why.

 

I have this perfume oil spray called "Samhain Fires". I purchased it in Salem years ago. And up till about 2 years ago, it was always available at The Cat, The Crow and the Crown. Then, much to my disappointment, they discontinued it, replacing it with a mediocre 5ml bottle of something kind of like it.

 

Jack... is "Samhain Fires", only MORE and by far BETTER.

 

It's EVERYTHING I smell when I walk the streets of Salem in October. The tastes and scents of the vendors baked goods. The pumpkins. The hot spiced "Witch's Brew" with Cinnamon sticks in every cup. The dry leaves strewn about the streets. The bonfires, and warm smell of the wood burning.

 

All my memories of Salem are wonderful (except for dealing with some of the shops - I sell to some of them, and a few of them are really harsh, demanding, and generally VERY nit picky). But, Jack brings me back to my first night in the Salem Beer Works... when I had my very first Pumpkin Ale. It brings me right back to every wonderful thing that keeps me going back to Salem every October.

 

And if "Samhain Fires" smelled like Jack, I'd have been FURIOUS when it was discontinued. Though I think maybe after all the complaining last October, they may have brought it back. If something screams "MONEY MAKER" the Cabot shop will carry it. I never did understand what they were thinking - people were standing in line to get that spray.

 

Jack WILL be a bigger bottle for me in the VERY near future.

[FireInCairo]

Buttery..Spicy Bliss! This is just goregous. It smells like baked pumpkin seeds with loads of butter and cinnamon. It also resembles the smell of a jack o'lantern that has a slight burning smell from the candle burning its roof. I'm very pleased to see that this is in the permanent collection.

[AmberBreathing]

I was so excited when I read the description for Jack, it sounded like everything I adore in a scent. From the tube it smells buttery and pumpkin-y, perfectly lovely. On my skin it smells like burning tire rubber.

[stitch of bloodh]

after smelling then wearing, i felt like i should

be eaten alive by someone or something.

[la-roja]

On me Jack was spicy and sweet but with a note that I couldn't quite pin down. I think it was the pumpkin, but raw, warm pumpkin not pumpkin pie pumpkin. If it had been cooked pumpkin I think I would have liked it more. The raw edge did not agree with my stomach and turned what would have been a lovely edible scent into an unpleasant and definitely not edible experience.

[shriekingviolet]

Initial Impression:

Warm and foody, rich and indulgent.

 

After Wearing It:

I got this imp for free from the lovely Amy (_dark_cello_) when we went to dinner last weekend and boy did I love the scent in the vial! It smelled like everything a pumpkin pie should smell like: rich, wholesome, rich and wellspiced. Too bad it didn't quite smell that way on. Both wet and for a few hours later, Jack reeked of pumpkin and not much else. Bright orange, fruity, and so substantial it smelled solid, something you should be able to sink your teeth into. You could smell baking spices flitting around the edges, but this was still undeniably pumpkin rather than pumpkin pie.

 

As time wore on though, the pumpkin faded and a lovely & sweet smell of pies baking in the oven came out. Too bad though, by this time it was fading fast and I had to really sniff to catch this lovely stage. Disappointing!

 

Final Thoughts:

I'd have adored this is the pumpkin note were more subtle. I'll give Jake a chance as a room scent before swapping it though. Might turn out to be beautiful in that medium!

[Joey]

I think that this is my favourite scent so far!!! I absolutely love it. It smells mapley to me. Just plain yummy!!! I will be buying a big bottle of this one for sure.

[PookasCrayon]

Initial:

 

Huge flashback to my teen years, walking into the tobacco shop in the mall to look at the pewter miniatures. A very warm, happy flashback, albeit pretty nerdy on my part.

 

On:

Doesn't work on me. Unfortunately, it burned my skin. Very strong tobacco and cinnamon on me.

 

On my husband, however (who bought the imp for himself anyway), it's absolutely edible. Still hints of flavoured pipe tobacco, but the spice and pumpkin are there.

 

DryDown:

 

Oh. My. God. He must wear this with his leather jacket. And then hope he's been taking his vitamins and is prepared to be utterly mauled. More pumpkin, more spice, tobacco is fading into a warm ... uh, excuse me, I must nibble on his arm now.

 

Definite Keeper.

[hypothermya]

The review below the black text is for the first formulation of Jack. Recently I got ahold of an imp of the reformulated Jack, and I have to say it is lovely. Still doesn't capture the scent of pumpkins that I was imagining (you know -- like when you're carving into them?), but it smells like deliciously spiced, creamy, baking pumpkins. Layered with Three Witches, it smells just divine. Not my favorite scent from BPAL, but still a good one.

 

I adore pumpkins. Halloween is my favorite time of year, and the amount of time that I spend around pumpkins during the holidays is almost distressing to everyone around me. Seriously, I spend hours carving pumpkins and pulling out their innards, until my nails are stained orange; even more time is spent in the kitchen making pumpkin pie, bread, custard, baked pumpkin seeds, soup, and anything else pumpkin based that I can get a recipe for. So basically, I had no doubt that I'd love this.

 

In the Bottle

 

I have to admit that this is one of the more foul smells that I've encountered. At very first sniff (I'm talking about the first half second of smelling it), it smells really good, like baking pumpkins, maybe right after you've added the dry ingredients (like baking powder and the spices) to a bowl with pumpkin puree. But then it turns into the scent of burnt butter and pumpkin, and the peach underneath it all seems to only contribute an overripe/sweet smell to it. The "aftersmell" is like charred pumpkin bread stuck to the walls of an oven.

 

Wearing It

 

This does change on my skin, but not enough. Wet, it retains the strong scent of burnt pumpkin; once it dries, the smell of charred butter and bread is more prominent. The peach also turns the smell sickly sweet (there's something about peach and my skin chemistry that just *won't* play nice), and is just noticeable enough to bother me. I'm honestly really upset that this doesn't work on my skin. I want to cry.

 

And just to prove that it isn't my skin chemistry playing nasty tricks on me, I made my boyfriend try it on. I was hoping that maybe he could smell absolutely delicious. But it still smells like burnt pumpkin on him, though much less like bread and butter. The sub note of peach doesn't turn the scent too sweet either. But still...burnt pumpkin isn't what I want him to smell like. (And, go figure, he doesn't want to smell like that either!)

 

 

I had read the reviews and noted the few negative ones, and figured that I was just too "hardcore" a pumpkin fanatic for *any* pumpkin smell to bother me. That'll teach me to not pay attention to the reviews here in the future. I'd wanted so badly for this to work, but...C'est la vie, I suppose. I wish I could smell a single note of pumpkin, and see if it was the pumpkin itself that was reacting badly on my skin and in the bottle, or if it could be blamed on the peach and the other ingredients. The pumpkin scents in Samhain weren't anything but delicious (although a definite subnote to the apple cider/fall leaf scent). But...unless a single scent of pumpkin suddenly shows up on the single note list, I guess I'll just have to wonder.

Edited October 13, 2004 by hypothermya

[Tesseljoan]

My reaction to ths was *exactly* the same as Shriekingviolet's: The pumpkin really stands out, a fresh, sweet pumpkin with a bit of spice around the edge and unfortunately nothing of the buttery goodness I can catch whilst smelling the vial. The sweet pumpkin note rather reminds me of potpourri. I'm not entirely sure yet whether I dislike it on my skin, but I'll definately give it a try as a room scent, to see if the butter stick around a bit longer.

[Electra]

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I *love* the smell of October. I thought Jack would be perfect for me.

 

Nope. My reaction was the same as tesseljoan's and shriekingviolet's. Screaming buttery pumpkin, barely any spice. Really disappointing - I wanted so badly to love this one.

[fairywingmaker]

Nutmeg, Buttery Pumpkin, Warm Autumnal...I love this scent. I've bought a 5ml of this, and will most likely buy another

[Nadirah]

This is just delicious, reminiscant of prowling the autumn night. Its a hot almost burnt pumpkin spice. Strong but not overpowering on me. As soon as I put it on I was taken to mid fall. This is really beautiful, baked pumpkin with a light touch of cinnamon and toasted at the top.

[Mitzy]

OMG JACK.

 

this is GREAT. I love this scent. I knew I would.

 

when I opened the imp for a preliminary sniff I literally moaned out loud. (yeah that was a first!) It was just so perfect, my nose wanted to crawl into the imp and live there. the scent in the imp is sweet, perfect, pumpkin pie. upon application, there is an initial burst of pure pumpkin, which quickly fades. the nutmeg and clove come alive (and I mean ALIVE) as they are very sharp and biting. the remaining scent on my wrist is a glorious spiced pumpkin. not pie though, as I cant find the buttery-ness some others talked about. I couldnt find the peach in this either, but I think it just generally makes the whole oil slightly sweeter. this suits me perfectly. I need more of this. now.