arcana soaps straitjacket

My bottle of Arcana Soaps Straitjacket perfume oil.

It's finally Spring so it's the perfect time to...review Halloween perfumes? Yes? Is Halloween ever not appropriate? It's the season that keeps on giving.

 (God I love Fall. I love Halloween. I love the colors and the scents and flavors and weather and giant sweaters. I will be a Fall person always, regardless of season.)

Anyways...



I get to brag about this one, at least a little bit. This is the last bottle of Straitjacket to come out of the Arcana workshop, ever. I feel kinda special about that, I guess. I asked Julia what the year was on this, but she was unsure, so I'm not sure how long this batch has aged.

Also, while I say "last bottle", this is simply the last one Arcana made and sold, it's not the last one floating around for sale. SBC still has a few, and for a killer price, in case this review strikes your interest.

I bought this mainly for the bottle art, but the scent is also right up my alley too.  From Arcana:

"Trust us, it's for your own good. A warm, controlled hug of rich Tahitian vanilla, pumpkin flesh, ginger custard, breadfruit, and hints of tonka bean, mango, and cinnamon."

True to its origins as a Halloween scent, it's a very warm and gourmand Autumn scent in a bottle. Right out the bottle wet I get the custard and vanilla with the tonka bean and a fruity and slightly tangy hint of mango and a whiff of cinnamon. I worry about my skin amping cinnamon like crazy, but this actually goes opposite. Dry on the skin it's rich vanilla and custard with slight fruitiness, and the cinnamon fades fairly fast into a slight hint of spice. The cinnamon wafts in and out but never becomes overpowering, and the mango fades pretty quickly and gives way to the sweet custardy base. As it fades it just becomes a rich vanilla custard scent on my skin, and it stays that way.

For hours.

This has some of the best wear time and sillage I've ever gotten from any perfume, and I'm not sure if it's the age or Arcana's formula or both. I've had this last somewhere around twelve hours on me, and at that point I was still sometimes getting whiffs of vanilla as my wrist brushed past my face. Arcana perfumes always have pretty good wear time for me, but this one has to be top tier.

 If you really love Fall candles and gourmand scents, you will probably like this. It's everything you could ever want in a Fall foodie scent, very rich and sweet and slightly spicy and just overall very cozy and delicious. The "comforting hug" part really makes sense, because it reminds you of one of those desserts that's so rich that after consuming it you just want to curl up into a blanket burrito and sleep for a week.

Happy uh...seven months until Halloween, everyone?

Where to buy: SBC, unsure how limited stock is; otherwise you're best off checking destashes from perfume junkies on reddit or other forums!