Halloween Man Eau de Toilette – Product Review

Just in case anyone that reads this site was still unsure, I love Halloween. I tend to love most of the silly, mass-produced trinkets that flood the shelves of your conglomerate-owned neighborhood department stores each and every Halloween. Whether this be decorations (preferably vintage), holiday-themed food products, or even just Halloween-themed string lights, I’m sure to purchase more than a few items that I don’t actually need each Halloween season.

If you frequent our Facebook page, you may be aware of the “Random Amazon Links” that I post on a frequent basis. These are items that I find on Amazon, generally while looking for other items, that I share with the readers in the very slim chance that they themselves will want one. Many of these links (especially during October) tend to be for Halloween-themed items, albeit usually not the Halloween-themed items I was originally looking for.

It was during one of these searches that I came across Halloween Man Eau de Toilette by J. Del Pozo. For those not fluent in “fancy talk”, it’s a cologne… or body spray… or some shit like that. Whatever you choose to call it, it’s a fragrance for men to put on their bodies in order to hide the fact that they normally smell like 5-day old Egg Drop soup. As I can not say that I’ve seen a Halloween cologne before, mostly because I’ve never looked, I was immediately intrigued. To be honest, I laughed at the concept and then forgot about it for a couple months.

Now truth be told, there was nothing that had hinted that Halloween Man smelled like Halloween. What does Halloween even smell like? Pumpkin spice? Sugary candies? Decaying leaves? Slaughtered teenagers? Per the Amazon listing, Halloween Man features an “Oriental woody scent”, which I assume means a mélange of “new carpet” and “lumberyard”, which sounds “manly” enough, but doesn’t conjure up images of Halloween.

However, the description continues, citing “a blend of apple martini, violet leaf, green basil, ginger, cinnamon, lavender, orange blossom, leather accords, musk, grey amber, and vanilla”. There’s a lot going on here, but, much like any of those Bath & Body Works sprays, wallflowers, and body washes that my wife buys by the pallet, the key scent is vanilla. It’s always vanilla! Now, while all those other scents may sound rather appealing individually, blended together they potentially create a stench that we will just call “rotted asshole”.

The listing continues on, mentioning that Halloween Man was made of “high quality material”. There is no mention whatsoever of what this mysterious “high quality material” is, or what the ratio was of this “high quality material” to water. As there was also no warning label stating that the product may be radioactive, I’ll just assume that whatever this “high quality material” is, it’s fairly safe-ish.

The most compelling selling point, however, may be the claim that Halloween Man was made “for romantic wear”. As I consider myself to be quite romantic in all of my endeavors, the product sounded right up my alley! I really don’t know what either of those last 2 statements mean, but if Halloween Man made my wife even 10% more willing to test out the legs on that new futon we bought, then I was more than willing to pay the $27 for a 4.2 ounce bottle!

Here’s the new futon… It too has already seen some “romantic wear”.

Now, before going into my personal assessment of the product, I thought it might be interesting to mention the Amazon reviews. As of this writing, Halloween Man Eau de Toilette has 652 costumer ratings on Amazon, 82% percent of which are 5-star! While this may seem like a glowing recommendation, it’s worth considering some of the comments.

“Smells like a man.” – Well, thanks for that review, Ms. Swan!

“My girlfriend says it smells like money, power, and sex!” – Eww! Who wants to smell like sweat, semen, and shame without actually having sex?

“I like it better as an air freshener!” -So, you’re saying it smells like Glade?

The product was ordered and arrived at my house just a few days later. Halloween Man comes in a sleek purple bottle, with a silver trim top featuring the name. While I have nothing to prove that I received a legitimate bottle, the packaging did match what I had found online and the bottle appeared intact and untampered with. That said, this review is being written for my own amusement, so I really didn’t give two shits what it smelled like, just as long as it smelled like something!

Upon receiving the product, I was immediately reminded of a very critical element that I really have no excuse to have not considered prior. I have no sense of smell! Due to severe (continuing) sinus issues that have required surgery, I pretty much lost the sense of smell a few years back. That’s not to say that I can’t smell anything, but it is infrequent and the odor usually has to be quite overpowering. In fact, I often can not smell items placed right under my nose!

So, how does one with the inability to readily detect and distinguish scents review a fragrance? Easy! You make others your guinea pigs!

The first test was to spray Halloween Man (2 pumps/sprays) into the air of the upstairs loft that serves as the Horror And Sons “office”, my wife (Mandi) serving as the ceremonial test subject. Mandi stated that the scent was nice, but that it was not strong enough for her to make a real opinion. This lead her to spraying some on her wrist.

At first, her opinion of the scent was still pleasant. When asked to describe the fragrance, she said that it reminded her of autumn. When pressed for more description, Mandi stated that the scent was sweet, but definitely not pumpkin spice. She soon began to complain about the smell, saying that it was making her nauseous. While Halloween Man may have been a welcome aroma in the air, she found it to be quite “chemical” and overpowering up-close, which reflects the views of a few Amazon reviewers.

How J. Del Pozo pictures a “Halloween Man” vs. how most horror fans picture a “Halloween Man”

As the sole opinion of my spouse is not nearly enough to make an informative review, even a purely satirical one such as this, I next enlisted my young sons as guinea pigs in my study. This quickly proved to be not only futile, but a horrible, horrible mistake. My oldest son, aged 10, said that I smelled like mint, which may have been the lingering scent of toothpaste from my having brushed my teeth just 5 minutes prior. My youngest, aged 5, said that I smelled like farts. As he frequently says this about his father, maybe we shouldn’t put too much credence in his opinion.

This feedback did little to make my research conclusive. I needed the feedback of outsiders, which would prove difficult in the time of COVID. To reach these ends, I decided to subject a co-worker to my experiments. A new co-worker, I might add, whose training was my sole reason for even going into my company’s office. Now, some of you may be thinking that my asking a new hire to smell me, her supervisor, would potentially violate some HR code of conduct and/or ethics… and you’d be 100% correct in assuming that! Sometimes, you just have to do what you have to do to get the job done.

My co-worker also noted that the fragrance was pleasant, but did not feel it was anywhere near as over-bearing as what my wife had experienced. While she too was unable to give any specific scents, she too stated that the fragrance was somewhat “sweet”, with hints of vanilla and possibly cinnamon.

This same day, my wife also notice the “cologne” and noted that it smelled much better on me than it had on herself, but that I still smelled like the Autumn showcase at a Yankee Candle store. I had effectively made myself smell just like the same God-damned things that my wife spends hundreds of dollars on each year and now litter the closets and shelves of my family’s home!

This is just a fraction of what I’m living in!

So, if your significant other is the type who gets their undies moist at the thought of the Fall offerings at Michael’s, or you simply like the idea of smelling like a tapestry of somewhat undefinable Autumn scents, then maybe Halloween Man might be for you! If nothing else, it makes an enjoyable air freshener/scent booster for your home, albeit a rather expensive one! Seriously, just buy a candle!

As previously mentioned, Halloween Man is available on Amazon for around $27. Prices vary from other vendors, but I can not vouch for any of their credibility. There are bottles listed on eBay for cheaper, but most of those seem to be fakes or damaged bottles. Besides, do you really want to wear a fragrance that you got off eBay? Amazon is embarrassing enough! That said, you can still get bottles of Debbie Gibson’s “Electric Youth” perfume on eBay, so there’s that.

Halloween Man is also available in other scents, entitled Halloween Man X, Halloween Man Shot, and Halloween Man Rock On!. I have not tried these products, nor do I really intend to. $27 was enough for this one joke alone.