Last year our community endured a Halloween of broken dreams as traditions, parties, festivals, conventions, and other gatherings were all canceled, having run afoul of the pandemic raging with no end in sight. There was little to do but tend our respective flames, eat our candy, and wait.

While the end seems no closer, and businesses large and small (like ours!) are increasingly threatened by supply issues, 2021 has loosened its grip on us somewhat: thanks to the proliferation of vaccines, certain events and outdoor activities such as trick-or-treating are expected to proceed with minimal risk. How convenient, a holiday that already revolves around masks! Here’s to a joy that will likely taste all the sweeter, having been deferred.

This time of year offers delights for every age and level of sophistication. BPAL’s autumn perfume collection is our annual attempt to reconnect with that mysterious childhood awe we felt during brushes with the uncanny and unexplained; memories of haunts from bygone years; the adolescent thrills of shapeshifting and interacting with one’s inner darkness. These scents also offer companionship in the more adult forms of introspection associated with the season — meditations on mortality set against landscapes rich with fruits of the harvest as well as the inescapable evidence of decay.

So what follows is this year’s batch of creature comforts and lavish disturbances, steeped in the history and folklore we love revisiting year after year, sprinkled with a few tricks, treats, and unannounced guests. May these phantasms thrill and sustain you in the unsteady times that lie in wait for us, playing some small part in the formation of new memories, and the conjuration of old ones.