Hungry Ghost Moon 2025

[doomsday_disco]

BPAL’s first Hungry Ghost Moon in 2006 was a celebration of the moment when the Gates of Hell burst open and ghosts pour forth from the Nine Darknesses into the sunlit world. Inspired by Drew Rausch’s artwork, 2025’s incarnation is a bit different: a spectral slice of pizza, dribbling with a cool, herbal ectoplasm. Blobs of white musk, white tomato, a memory of sourdough crusts, white peppercorn, and rivulets of beeswax candles dribbled on cardboard pizza boxes.

 

May we all find the sustenance we need, in this life and in the next.

[OxfordComma]

Well. It's ghost pizza! The tomato note jumps out the most at me, almost tomato-leafy but with a more savory feel than the typical fresh green vibes. It smells like you have tomato sauce on the stove, sourdough in the oven, and you had to run outside to your garden to grab some fresh herbs. It's remarkably clean smelling, but still kinda foodie in an herbal-savory way. It's completely unlike anything I own and it makes me want a focaccia with sun-dried tomatoes something fierce, but I kinda fuck with it? I get whiffs of cardboard and the occasional beeswax hit and I think once summer chills out with this 105° everyday bullshit, this will be much more wearable for me. 

 

TLDR: spooky atmospheric pizza 👻🍕

 

(Eta: Long drydown is more white musk with herbal notes and a creamy beeswax. This part is super wearable even in this heat. Great summer to fall transition scent!) 

Edited July 23 by OxfordComma

[frizzlechicken]

Buckle up, because 2025's Hungry Ghost Moon is a wild ride. I love pizza, so this entire lunacy was exciting to me. I can already tell some of the duets are gonna be bangers, but I've yet to fully try them. But Hungry Ghost Moon! Stick with it because the initial sniff is nothing like what lurks in the shadows.

 

When first cracking open the bottle, it's strong. What hits you is a loud POOF of herbs and, basically, tomato sauce that's just been spread onto the pizza dough prior to baking. I am not going to lie, it's a little off-putting, and I wondered if my love of pizza had led me astray because I don't actually need to smell like a pizza, you know? So I dabbed a little on carefully, in case the smell of sauce was going to overwhelm me. But on skin, with minutes, this scent takes off! It blooms into a lovely and gentle floral with a slight honey-bread note. As time is passing, a the floral note takes on a tropical feel, and there's a little bit of musk. It's really, really great and I'm looking forward to layering it with the corresponding duets. I also agree with the above reviewer that this is a perfect summer-to-fall scent.

[wilhelmscream]

I must second frizzlechicken's review in saying that right out of the bottle, this perfume is very strong and yes, a little off-putting! It's an incredibly thick air of pizza dough, cardboard and that sweet hint of beeswax. Given the mixture of savory components mixed with a few more "perfume-y" elements, it's the kind of perfume that can only be properly picked apart on the skin.

 

After about two minutes on the skin, everything starts to settle and that thick air starts to break apart. The earthy tomato and peppercorn begin to pop out against that undeniably chewy pizza dough note. A savory gourmand with a hint of spice and sparkle. The cardboard that was so dominant in the bottle immediately moves into the background of it all, providing a bit of a frame to this crazy picture. The beeswax and the white musk are what take this this pizza out of the restaurant and into perfume territory.

 

I can't stress this enough, it is a wildly bizarre combination of notes all swirled together! And yet, the longer I sit with it, the more enjoyable it becomes and the more I want to keep bringing my hand up to my nose for a deep inhale. I feel like I'm at a dinner party with friends; homemade pizza right out of the oven and served at a candle-lit patio table on a quiet summer evening.

 

Initially shocking but actually gorgeous!