Jingle Bells Holiday Smells: Boy Smells Holiday Travel Spray Set

October is over, there's a chill in the air, and all the retailers are rolling out their holiday sets and limited edition items! One set that has decided to go very heavy and rich for the holidays is Boy Smells' new Holiday Travel Spray Set ($99). They have made three new scents, which are perfume versions of some of their popular candles; Incensorial, Holiday Smells, and Broken Rosary, and added in a travel size of their recent release Vanilla Era for good measure. 

Boy Smells loves to do limited edition travel size scents and after I missed out on the Farm to Fragrance Trio I didn't want to let another set slip through my fingers, especially because Broken Rosary has been a favorite candle of mine since they released it. It was the first candle I ever spent more than $20 on and it became a household favorite. On a more personal note, I have always enjoyed rosewood, especially since my grandmother bought me a rosewood rosary when I was a little girl and I would often open the container it came in just to smell it. I did that much more often than I prayed with it. So anything rosewood or rosary reminds me of my grandmother, so a candle named after one with rose, cedar, and sandalwood notes is right up my alley. 

So when I saw Boy Smells' new limited edition quad had a fragrance version of Broken Rosary (finally!) I knew I had to have it. Moreover, I am so excited to smell Incensorial, given that I have been on the hunt for incense scents that remind me temples in Japan. While I can tell from the cardamom and citrus inclusions that this likely will not be quite what I am looking for, I am excited to smell their take on incense nonetheless. Holiday Smells is of course an exciting scent profile as well and Vanilla Era is such perfect inclusion in the set, giving a good team player scent to round out the bunch. 

All four sprays in box, from Boy Smells website

Let me say, overall the set is gorgeous. It comes in a beautiful pine green box with the travel spray outlines and Boy Smells brand name embossed in gold metallic foil on the front of the box. If you wanted to unpack this and put it right under the tree, it would look gorgeous. The sprays are tucked securely in cutouts inside so you can keep the whole thing on a fragrance vanity and it would be such an eyecatcher. The sprays themselves are opaque metallic tubes, and they match the colors of the candles they are based on. My only annoyance with opaque tubes is you never know when you're getting near empty, but the colors make the sprays so pretty to look at, I can forgive it.

This is a review of the three new scents, as I think Vanilla Era has been on the market for long enough to not need a review here. I will say that it's a good midrange vanilla scent, creamy and soft and not too noticeable. Definitely more of a personal scent and more of a vanilla bean cream and less of the woody, flavorful vanillas I have worn before. 

Broken Rosary 

This is the first one I've decided to wear, as I think it goes well year round and is perfect for the day before Halloween. It helps that it's also the one I am most excited about. Boy Smells' page for the quad says Broken Rosary is "a divine intervention of sacred woods, cinnamon leaf + rose water." This aligns with the Broken Rosary candle notes breakdown. Personally I genuinely think this is a photocopy of the candle, down to a slightly waxy background smell. 

Broken Rosary candle notes

The cinnamon leaf keeps this whole composition gently spicy, not quite as aggressive as patchouli or vetiver and elemi, but like the La Croix of them, the concept of spice. This does a lot to offset the powdery orris and keep the composition very fluid. I find it helps the fragrance really get into the air, as the projection is pretty good on this one, despite the notes making it look heavy. The website says rose water, but I feel like there's more to it, like a rose oil. There is something sweet at the heart of this fragrance, not as syrupy as a Bulgarian, but it mixes with the sandalwood to create that beautiful rosewood accord. I have found sandalwood to be quite creamy and mellow, not spicy or dry like cedar, which mixes very nicely with the musk. It gives the fragrance a cashmere base, soft and warm and supple. There is something else in the fragrance that's reminiscent of church next to the cinnamon leaf, a depth that I would attribute to myrrh if I could. I don't get any of the bergamot note when sprayed, which I think would be a fun way to twist the cinnamon into something very uplifting and zingy, but I'm not too upset at the loss. 

The fragrance remains fairly spicy all day, flagging in its projection after about 5 hours. Any additional cinnamon spice settles down onto the skin and mixes with the musks for a slightly dirty base. The woods are still there, a little more rigid against the musk, but definitely a deeper part of the composition. This lasted a solid 8 hours on me and smelled divine the whole time, the only thing that noticeably changes is how much of the fragrance is in the air around you. I liked the dry down immensely. 

I really enjoyed this. It smells so much like the candle that if you own it already, you can know exactly what this will smell like. My only drawback is just like the candle, I do find this slightly overwhelming. This is definitely a fragrance I need to be mindful of how much I spray, so I don't fumigate myself. If you find the candle to be a little too much after about 2 hours of burning, then this fragrance will also be a lot. For me, just a few sprays on the wrists/elbows plus the one in the hair is enough. Spraying directly on the neck or shirt would make the fragrance too much for me. 

Incensorial 

This starts out very aggressive from the bottle, but the incense in question is quite thin and high, like the sticks you buy when you're first getting into burning it when you're a teen. It's not quite as smooth as temple incense or as rich as church incense, but it certainly smells a lot and gets everywhere. Boy Smells' website says this is "a vibrant symphony of citrus, cardamom + incense" and again, I do not get any citrus from this scent. 

Incensorial candle notes

The nutmeg however is quite prominent, and it gives that same beautiful peppery nose tingle as when you grate fresh nutmeg. There is a woodiness to it that pairs beautifully with the spicy incense. The apricot is not necessarily the juicy yellow flesh of the fruit, but the more pithy purple/white flesh that sits right next to the pit, the part you eat even though you know you shouldn't and it makes you grimace a little because it's so bitter compared to how soft and sweet the ripe flesh was. The pithy apricot helps offset the spice from the other notes without bogging the composition down with sugar that would otherwise appear in fruity notes like that. 

I would say the really aggressive top notes of incense and nutmeg settle down after about 4 hours. During that time, much like Broken Rosary, the fragrance does make me think of a candle the whole time. Whether that's because I've sniffed too many holiday candles throughout the years with similar compositions or because I'm being placeboed by knowing this is based off a candle I'm not sure, but there is something just a little too chemically in the fragrance for me to really enjoy this as a fragrance and not something more akin to a room spray. After about 4 hours, when the fragrance is no longer projecting, I liked it so much more. 

The base layer of cardamom really opens up, and what's left of the nutmeg and incense settle down, like gently smoldering remnants of a fire, all combining on the skin. The fragrance is very faintly in the air around you, but it is mostly concentrated where it was sprayed, and when you lift your wrist to your nose, you can pick up on everything. If you are someone who likes to make mugs of spicy hot chocolate or warm milk with spices in the winter, you will know what I am talking about, but the swirl of cardamom, nutmeg, incense, and creamy sandalwood at the base reminds me of when you've finished drinking your beverage and the spices that didn't fully mix into the drink are all sitting at the bottom of your mug in a concentrated sludge. The smell it creates is so comforting but lively, and that's what the dry down of Incensorial is to me. While I don't love the first 4 hours of wear, I really really like what comes after it's burned itself out. 

There is also something else to it. Weirdly, when I smell my wrist there's a faint fruity acidity to it. While I am sure it's the leftover apricot, it does also remind me of raisins. That smell when you open a box of raisins and the first whiff of raisin air hits you? That's what's in this as well. It's not so fruity as to take away from the spice and the heat, but enough to mellow it out and make it delectable. 

Incensorial lasts as long as Broken Rosary but less noticeably. The dry down is very soft and close to the skin, and it burns away gradually but evenly. While I didn't love the initial spray on this one and I do wish the incense was a richer, more well rounded scent, I do love the composition concept and I really enjoyed the middle and bottom note combinations. If the incense note wasn't in this, it would be perfect to layer with a warm lactonic scent, like Commodity's Milk for that realistic mug of warm milk idea. 

Holiday Smells

This one is definitely the lightest of the three candle based scents. Boy Smells has described this one as "a simmering blend of cardamom, jasmine petals + vanilla" and I think those three notes alone can tell you how creamy this scent is. On first spray there's definitely a quick bright spiciness in the air, which I attribute that to the cinnamon note. This is definitely more like dried cinnamon, with that earthy spiciness, so it reminded me of Incensorial from yesterday. However almost as soon as I left the space where I had sprayed Holiday Smells on myself, I lost any scent in the air. This is definitely more of a personal space scent, sitting very close to the skin. 

Holiday Smells candle notes

The cardamom works in harmony with the jasmine and vanilla to create this wonderful, gentle creamy scent, and almost make me think there's a genuine milk/cream lactonic notes buried between them. The jasmine keeps the vanilla and woods airy and lifted, adding just enough diffusion to the fragrance to prevent it from melting into the skin like a lotion. It also has the lovely white floral sweetness that adds a nice contrast to the cardamom and a little more depth to the vanilla. The fig is not as present in the composition as I would've expected. There is no juiciness nor is there that aggressive sugar note that comes from the pink flesh of a ripe fig. I find it's more like you are smelling the skin of the fig, the sweet being nullified and filtered through a more gentle woody green note. Paired with the vanilla and jasmine it's almost like you made a fig smoothie, the fruit being mixed in with everything else and only half as fragrant as it was raw. 

After about 6 hours it's really melted down to just the jasmine, vanilla, and woods. The note is called a cashmere wood and I agree, it is definitely a soft, blonde wood, and not dry like many woods are. It mixes well with the jasmine, to create this fragrant but sturdy base. The woods are not noticeable until you get close to your wrist and inhale deeply, the vanilla and jasmine reaches your nose first for the wave of white warmth. 

This is all to say I enjoy this fragrance very much, but compared to the projection and spiciness of the first two scents, I was very surprised at how mellow and cozy this one was. It really feels like a big soft white terry blanket being wrapped around you, sitting by a fire with a warm mug of milk. You could wear this to bed. Because of how gentle and creamy this is, it very gently burns away, which I like in a fragrance. It's like a song that fades, you know the end is coming so you can enjoy what's still left until it's all gone, but when it ends there is no jarring loss, because of how gradually it let go. 

Not just because of the name but also because of how subtle and pleasant this scent was, I would argue this would be the best holiday get together scent of the bunch. It sits so close to the skin that every time you lean in for a hug, the person hugging you gets enveloped by it's warmth and spirit, but it doesn't project enough for anyone with scent sensitivities to get overwhelmed and start sneezing, like Incensorial and Broken Rosary might. 

Overall

I think this is a great set for the holidays. I know lots of fans of Boy Smells have been clamoring for perfume versions of their candles and this delivered really well. Sometimes when companies try to make replicas of scents in other forms, they add or change notes or don't get the ratios right for the new delivery method, but these are such faithful recreations of the candles that you even get a slight waxiness to them. I have really enjoyed the concepts from Boy Smells' latest releases and I do wish they would see the support they got for things like Farm to Fragrance and Banana Pudding and go back to making interesting, boundary pushing fragrances on the "genderful" ethos they have, but that's an argument for another post. The compositions for these new scents are exciting and lively and work all year round, even outside of the holidays. They are scents that can be worn by anyone and anytime and as a set are cohesive enough together to be layered if you wish (I think Incensorial and Vanilla Era would be lovely together) as well as being good foils. Brash and spicy Incensorial and Broken Rosary are offset by mellower Vanilla Era and Holiday Smells. And of course, if you bought one set and split them up into 4 stockings, they would all be fun offerings to whoever got them. 

At $99 for four sprays, it's roughly $25 each, which is obviously cheaper than Boy Smells' standard $30 for a travel spray. If you are lucky enough to find a coupon, then you can get them even cheaper. As someone who has been a fan of Boy Smells since their fragrance launch in 2021, I would argue that this is a good deal for their performance and interest. Furthermore, as I stated at the beginning, Boy Smells has been serious about the limited part of limited edition. I missed out on Farm to Fragrance because I naively hoped they were just a trial run for full size bottles and they pulled all marketing for them as soon as they sold out. I can only assume the same will happen here, unless they have a Christmas miracle up their sleeve, so if you have an affinity for any of the three candles, I would suggest buying the quad now rather than regretting a lost opportunity later.