Halloween Eau de Toilette

Green banana at the top of a fragrance is not something most houses would risk, and it is the first sign that Halloween Eau de Toilette is not an ordinary floral. The opening is strange and good. Violet arrives cold and powdery, lime cuts across it with a sharp, bitter citrus, and green banana adds an unripe, faintly starchy fruit note that reads more green than sweet. Those three together are unlike almost anything else on a shelf, and they are the reason this scent has kept an audience.

The middle softens but stays unusual. Magnolia brings a soft, faintly sharp petal quality, tuberose a creamy density, pink pepper a dry crackle, and violet returns, warmer and more powdered than it was at the start. It is a floral heart with a cool, dusty cast to it rather than a sunny one.

The last stage is where it gets serious. Sandalwood is creamy and dry, incense smoky and papery, myrrh darker and more bitter, and vanilla rounds the three of them into something warm and slightly sweet. Ten materials, and the journey from green fruit to smoke is a very long way for a fragrance to travel.

At eau de toilette strength it lasts a solid five or six hours and sits close after the first. It suits autumn and winter, evenings particularly, and it is a women's fragrance that will appeal to anyone tired of straightforward prettiness.

The line was created for Jesus del Pozo, a Madrid couturier whose first shop opened in 1974 and who died in 2011. His fragrances have been produced since 1992 by Perfumes y Diseno, a Spanish company that went on to acquire the fashion business, and Halloween is the best known name it carries.