today's present to myself from the advent scent-lendar was a nice "first week towards christmas" surprise from Twisted Wonderland Perfumery (now rebranded as Spirit and Venom Olfactory Arts).
this seasonal scent Bone Daddy Jack bridges the holidays between halloween and christmas, with its notes of "snow swirling through the air accented with sweet smashed pumpkins and wafts of sugarplums and smoke". if the name wasn't an obvious enough reference, the label art clears up any confusion - the perfume draws its inspiration from Jack Skellington, the protagonist of Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas".
in the bottle and on first application, this is a pleasantly chilly perfume that evokes Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy vibes to me, with sparkles and sugarplums and snow all around. i think there's the barest hint of halloween in the background, of sweet orange pumpkins and smoke, but without the notes in front of me i wouldn't have been able to find it.
with the drydown, the juicy ripeness of the plums dials down to become a supporting accent to the sweet coldness, turning Bone Daddy Jack into more of a gourmand winter atmospheric. wearing this transports me from my hot and humid afternoon in Singapore to a crisp chilly morning in Sweden, munching on a fresh juicy sugarplum as i look out at the blanket of snow on the windowsill and across the landscape as far as the eye can see. there's nary a trace of pumpkin or smoke as far as i can tell, which is perfect for the season as i like it.
the perfume has a nice strong throw on application, being detectable from an arm's length, and this gradually waned to a moderate throw of about a foot with the drydown. i was also very pleased to find that a literal drop of this on my wrist after lunch was enough to last me until suppertime, a good seven hours or so.
now, this review is more than just a sniff and scribble, but also what i felt was a good opportunity to take an objective look from a consumer's standpoint at marketing and advertising when it comes to fragrances, especially indies. full disclaimer, i'm not commenting on this at all from any legal perspective as that's not something i have expertise in especially when it comes to US copyright law; my comments below are merely my own personal opinion of how i feel about such designs as a consumer.
while i love my disney characters as much as anyone else, i think that there's a fine line between scents that are "inspired by" or pay homage to characters, versus scents that actually include drawings or photos of copyrighted characters on their labels.
notwithstanding that this particular label art for Bone Daddy Jack could have been drawn by the perfumery's in-house design team, it's my personal view as a consumer that unless a derivative licence had been granted to the fragrance house by the owners of the copyright, using a picture of the copyrighted character looks nice but doesn't sit quite right with me, especially if the label art had also been used to sell the perfume online or in stores.
i would have much preferred a more creative take that didn't involve the actual character's image, perhaps the crest of the iconic snowy slope with some pumpkins and plums in the foreground and the full moon in the background, or just a plain text perfume name with some subtle comment about bringing the smells of halloween and christmas together (hallow-mas?).
to me there's just something about the nature of indie products that almost screams to break the mould, to be perceived as a product unique in itself for its own merits. so while it's such an innovative idea for the perfume house to have come up with a scent inspired by Jack Skellington, i feel it would have been more awesome to have that little bit of distance from the character, to also show that this scent has value in and of itself for that unique perspective it brings.
i actually would have had second thoughts about purchasing this bottle if i had known the label art beforehand, but as this was bought second-hand from a list of available scents without photos, i'll be happy to finish up the perfume though won't be keeping the bottle for display after i'm done. 7/10 for the perfume in a vacuum, though holistically i personally can't see this justifying a repurchase with the labeling as it is.
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this review is of a product that i had purchased secondhand with my own money. i wasn’t asked to review this scent as a condition of receipt and didn’t receive any incentives for writing this. i’m not affiliated with Twisted Wonderland Perfumery (now Spirit and Venom Olfactory Arts) and as always, all opinions remain my own.
Spirit and Venom's catalogue is available here; though unfortunately Bone Daddy Jack is a discontinued scent from them prior to rebranding and appears to be unavailable.
all information correct at time of publishing.
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