Swamp Witch and Witchmusk: Halloween names against the notes

Spooky perfume names are costumes. The note list printed underneath is usually describing something quieter, and with Halloween a fortnight away it is worth reading one against the other before ordering.

Swamp Witch has no swamp in it

Swamp Witch is filed as spicy, woody and earthy, and the list bears that out: vetiver, cedar and pinewood up top, then clove, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, then cardamom, black pepper, pink pepper and vanilla-infused sandalwood over damp patchouli. The only wet thing in the bottle is the word "damp". There is no stagnant water, no moss, no rot. Take the title away and this is a spiced wood, nearer to cedar and chai than to anything gothic.

Simons Nest is the shop of illustrator Autumn Simons in South Devon, which sells roll-on oils and solid perfumes beside prints, cards and tote bags. Swamp Witch comes as a 5ml oil at $10, a 10ml at $18, or a solid at $18. At that price the name is doing the job a label illustration does, and the blend underneath is unembarrassed autumn spice.

WITCHMUSK is mostly musk

WITCHMUSK comes from House of Matriarch in Seattle, where Christi Meshell has composed natural, alcohol-based perfumes since 2009, using ethanol distilled from organic grapes. The maker gives seven entries and no positions: vanilla, cruelty free musk, magical broom flower, patchouli powder, sabinene, amber and noble woods.

Several of those are not botanical names at all. "Noble woods" names a category, musk names an effect rather than a plant, and sabinene is a bicyclic monoterpene, a single molecule found in nutmeg, bay laurel and marjoram oils and credited with part of the spiciness of black pepper. What is left, in plain terms, is vanilla, musk, patchouli and amber with a peppery lift: a close, skin-level composition, which is exactly how the house files it as musky, amber and earthy. It sells at $26 for 3.3ml, $140 for 16ml and $360 for 50ml. The house's own text points out that perfume "literally means to thoroughly smoke", which is a better guide to its catalogue than the word witch is.

The smoke sits in the shop, and over the marsh

Two of the strongest spooky names here are the ones that keep their promise.

Witchy Shoppe from Nui Cobalt Designs lists oakmoss, copal smoke, champaca, frankincense, Tibetan cedarwood, tonka bean, walnut, clove, Egyptian musk, sage and graveyard dirt. That is a censer and a herb cupboard, with one piece of stagecraft at the end. Forest Nui Cobalt has run the house from Columbus, Ohio since 2012, and sells oils she describes as "charged under optimal astrological conditions". A 1ml is $4.75 and 5ml is $19.95, which makes it the cheapest way into resin and moss in the library.

Feu Follet from Crow & Pebble, the Glasgow house founded by Karen and built on literature, myth and folklore, is cypress, Spanish moss, iris, church incense, ambergris, grapefruit, wintergreen and verbena. Feu follet is the French name for the will-o'-the-wisp, the ghost light seen over bogs and marshes. A cold green top over moss and incense is a fair reading of that, and the house files it earthy, floral and smoky. It is $19 and currently out of stock, so this one is a watch rather than a buy. It is also, awkwardly for Simons Nest, the actual swamp.

Where the name oversells

The gothic-sweet end is where titles and notes part company.

Beneath Moonlight opens on rhubarb, strawberry and passionfruit, then leather, almond, incense and tobacco leaf, closing with star anise, patchouli, vanilla bourbon and black pepper. The leather and tobacco are real, but a moonlit title is sitting over a fruit gourmand. Blood Moon does something similar: blood orange, blackberry and raspberry first, then dragon's blood, cinnamon, incense, neroli and pink pepper, with patchouli, ginger, clove, benzoin and sandalwood underneath. Fruity, spicy, smoky, in that order.

Meanwhile the plainest name in the Simons Nest range is the smokiest thing in it. November Cabin is cherry pie and cream over coffee and incense, then woodsmoke, cedar, pinewood, benzoin and juniper, at $10 for 5ml and $18 for 10ml. Crow & Pebble runs the same way round: Gift of Mercy leads with incense beside violet, plum, black tea and grapefruit, and Queen's Freedom puts incense under orpin rose, spicy rhododendron blossoms, cypress, Himalayan cedar, coriander and Szechuan pepper. Both are $19, and neither mentions a witch.

The practical lesson is that the family tags are more honest than the titles. If the brief is smoke rather than costume, everything smoky under $20 is a better filter than any seasonal name.

If it is earth and animal you want

The materials that spooky names gesture at tend to be expensive. SUSURRUS by Auphorie, the Malaysian atelier run by Eugene Au and Emrys Au since 2015, lists Chinese garden soil, moss and rain among quince, plum, rhubarb, chrysanthemum, Qi-Nan, incense, patchouli, iris butter, ambergris and musk, at $228. Wet soil in a garden scent is a stranger idea than a swamp on a label.

Shamamah from Sultan Pasha Attars, a one-person UK house working with naturals, is the smoke argument taken to its end: frankincense, saffron, camphor, beeswax, hyraceum, smoky Cambodian oud, 30-year patchouli, tobacco, benzoin, vetiver and juniper, from $121.29 for 1ml. For something genuinely odd rather than dressed as odd, Le Rayon Vert hides civet, castoreum, musk and oakmoss beneath jasmine, tuberose and gardenia, from $48.24 for 1ml.

Where to start

• Witchy Shoppe, $4.75 for 1ml: the cheapest honest test of copal, frankincense and oakmoss, for a reader who wants the censer and not the candy.
• Swamp Witch, $10 for 5ml: spiced cedar and vetiver in a roll-on, for anyone who likes the name and will be happy with autumn spice.
• Shamamah, $121.29 for 1ml: for the reader who has found the smoke in the $19 oils and wants it at full strength, in a 1ml worth rationing.