Halloween is now a season-long retail event, with limited-edition snacks, home decor, beauty and clothing showing up months before anyone has thought about a costume. We looked at why brands are so committed to it, and whether the rest of us are tired of it yet. Our two exhibits are a bottle of black ranch and a dish spray that smells like pumpkin spice.

Patient zero: the latte

If you need someone to blame, start with the pumpkin spice latte. The flavor has left the cafe and is working its way through the house like a very warm, very orange houseguest. Don't be surprised if your smoke detector smells like cinnamon by Thanksgiving.

Exhibit A: "spooky" ranch

Hidden Valley has a limited-edition Spooky Ranch. The bottle glows in the dark, the label has bats and a pumpkin, and the tagline promises "classic taste with a spooky black twist." This one gets a pass. It's silly, it photographs well, and it gives a plate of fries a reason to be in your feed.

Exhibit B: pumpkin spice dish spray

Dawn's limited-edition Pumpkin Spice Powerwash dish spray promises a scent that's "warm, spicy, aromatic." Let's review what dish soap is for: making dishes clean, and clean dishes don't smell like anything. Nobody has ever pulled a plate off the rack, inhaled, and said, "This needs more cinnamon!"

The scent is for the person washing: a little dishwashing atmosphere. The latte taught the whole industry how to sell those. Technically this is fall, not Halloween, which is the point. The season has stretched past one holiday into a mood, and anything with a scent, a color, or a label can join it.

Why brands love it

The National Retail Federation expects Americans to spend $13.5 billion on Halloween this year, up from $13.1 billion last year. By early August, a quarter of shoppers had already bought at least one Halloween item. That's a survey of what people say they plan to do, and it covers the whole holiday, not ranch or dish spray specifically. But it explains the shelves. When shoppers are in the mood that early, a seasonal version gives a familiar product a reason to be noticed again. The less a product has to do with the season, the more the season is doing the selling.

So, have we gone too far?

Shoppers aren't tired of Halloween, which is exactly why this keeps happening. Spending is forecast at a record, and by early August a quarter of shoppers had already bought something for it, so the products keep arriving earlier. Plenty of brands are joining in whether or not the theme makes sense, which is how you end up with black ranch and pumpkin spice dish spray.

The watchout for brands is the wallet. 79% of shoppers expect higher Halloween prices because of tariffs, and a shopper watching the total is less likely to pay extra for a pumpkin on the label. Spending is still up, so that's a risk to keep an eye on, not something the numbers show yet.

With your budget in mind, our rule is to spend on seasonal products where the theme adds something and skip the ones where it's the only thing that changed. Before anything seasonal goes in the cart, we'd ask three questions: 

Does the theme have anything to do with the job? A spooky ranch is still ranch, and at least it's edible fun. A seasonal scent on something whose whole purpose is to leave no trace is the theme doing all the work.

Would you buy it in plain packaging? If the answer is no, you're paying for the pumpkin.

Is it fun, or is it just there? The best seasonal products are a little ridiculous and make you smile. The worst make you feel behind for not having them.

The Edit

Halloween isn't the problem, and neither is a little pumpkin. The problem is when the season arrives earlier than it used to and brings products whose only qualification is a gourd on the label. Buy the ones that are actually fun, skip the ones that are just a pumpkin on a bottle, and give it a few weeks before you decide you really need the dish spray. The latte did this to us, and now we're the ones left holding the bottle.