Usually the local grocery store gets first dibs on kicking off the Halloween season. Sometimes AtHome will have a few things, but after going there once, I knew it would completely blow out my already stressed budget, so we’ll leave that be.

Someone mentioned that Bath & Body Works had some things out, and I initially passed it off. However, I happened to be at the mall for unrelated reasons and decided to step in. At the risk of losing my toxic masculinity, I’ll add the caveat that most of this was for family members of the female persuasion, although I can safely take ownership of the soap and hand sanitizers.

A few scents were on display, of which Vampire Blood and Ghoul Friend had the most varied offerings. Each of those had candles, soaps, glitter spritzers, air spray, bath bombs, and other things I can’t remember. While many of the offerings are self-explanatory in terms of scent, Vampire Blood appears to be a Cherry, while Ghoul Friend is very much a grape.

Pumpkin Carving was next with an array of candles and soaps, but not so much of the odd items like sprays. Finally there were a few candles like Spooky Cider Lane, which I really wanted, but didn’t want to deal with the soot on my ceiling in ten years when I move out and have to clean the house for a showing.

On the other side, there were some sprays that didn’t have any representation in candle or soap form. These weren’t even in the main Halloween section, but seemed to fit the bill. They included Enchanted Candy Corn and Wicked Vanilla Woods.

The bag of all this stuff ended up being north of $150, so that’s a record for blowing my budget by mid-July. I can sense an expensive season ahead.