Snake Oil Help! Layering it, Snake Pit scents, blends with Snake Oil

[alioth]

I am a lover of SO, so you can take this with a grain of salt, but: on me, Boomslang smells like aged SO--all delicious spiciness with vanilla and creamy dark chocolate. Green Tree Viper is barely SO at all, mostly minty and vanilla-y. Cake Smash is like crossing the good bits of SO with Dorian's musks and adding some foody sweetness. I tried Habu awhile back, but my notes say that it's wet, sharp, green woods with vanilla and a little of the SO spices.

 

edit: oh yeah, and Womb Furie--it's basically exactly as advertised (O+SO), so if you aren't an SO fan, it's probably not one to try until it's aged a year or so.

 

In summary, a lot of SO blends are mostly other stuff with a base of the best bits of SO, so don't necessarily fear them! I've never tried a snakepit blend that had the same medicinal sharpness new SO can have.

Edited March 14, 2010 by omoiadsu

[gypsyjolie]

I don't like SO new or aged, and O smells less like honey and more like B.O on me, but I adore Boomslang. The cocoa and teak seem to calm the spicy/powdery smell of SO. I liked Western Diamondback a lot, but I love leather, so that probably influenced it. Australian copperhead was pretty good because of the red tang of the acai berry , but I'm not much for fruity blends. Womb Furie was powdery honey - so the sharpness of SO and the curry-esque spiciness are both muted... and the honey stayed pretty true. I was pleasantly surprised by WF, but I have a lot of very honey blends from BPAL and others and figured it's not worth buying a bottle. I liked both Lilith Victoria and Lady Lilith as the feminine aspects embraced the powdery SO and muted the spiciness.

 

If the sharpness of new SO or the spiciness of SO is your objection, try the Snake Pit and WF. If you don't like the powderiness, you're pretty much SOL on all of the SO blends.

[Blood onmy hands]

I also don't like Snake Oil, aged or fresh (it smells something like dirty, burnt hair and baby powder on me :/), but I love a lot of the Snake Oil blends. Boomslang is my favorite, and it's a must-have if you like chocolate/cocoa scents. The dark, vanilla-y, incensey qualities of Snake Oil are great with the cocoa.

I really love a lot of the Snake Pit blends, actually.

Australian Copperhead is another of my favorites, and it's great if you like fruity blends, because the acai berry note is pretty strong.

Banded Sea Snake is pretty on me and I get a lot of the vanilla-y scent that's in Snake Oil, paired with a creamy, bright aquatic.

 

Womb Furie was more Snake Oil-y to me than most of the Snake Pit blends are. The honey makes it more wearable, but I'm still not sure if I really like Womb Furie or if I can pull it off.

 

I definitely recommend trying some of the snake pit blends even if you can't wear Snake Oil, though .

[TrailerTrashPrincess]

Cottonmouth!

 

i *want* to love Snake Oil, but it just never works on me. aged, fresh, it doesn't matter.

 

most of the Snake Pit blends have notes of doom in them, so they won't work for me. but Cottonmouth is fantastic!

Boomslang would be second - but as it has aged it has gotten more intense with the Snake Oil factor.

[lizzyshoe]

... I particularly like Coral Snake which really smells nothing at all like Snake oil...

I'm going to second this. I tried aged Coral Snake before trying fresh or aged SO, and it's nothing but sweet, yummy, fruitiness on me (but grounded). I can't detect the SO-ness in it at all. I love them both

[stitchpirate]

I really dislike Snake Oil, I think it's very unappealing. But I really love Western Diamondback (only have tried new) and Saw Scaled Viper (both new and aged are wonderful in different ways). Also, Cake Smash is amazing and possibly my favorite BPAL, ever.

Edited March 16, 2010 by stitchpirate

[marared]

I like Snake Oil, it's just not that amazing on my skin. I loooove Boomslang, though, and also the CTV Snake Oil that I got that has a very rich and nutty/shea butter/popcorn vibe to it.

 

I love the honey scents, but I can't deal with the fresh Snake Oil - it's going to be 6-8 months before I can tell if it'll really work or if the SO will dominate too much.

[Lorelai1945]

Lol- I have the opposite problem. I love Snake Oil, and never found a pit blend that worked for me. Guess I'll stick with the original.

[SugarCookie]

I think Boomslang is fantastic.

 

ALso Saw-Scaled Viper, Temple Viper, Australian Copperhead are good ones to try.

I'd also say give Lilith Victoria a shot.

[azurephoenix]

I like aged SO, but not fresh and I recently tried 6 of the Snake Pit Blends and I was surprised how different some of them smelled from SO. I wouldn't have guessed that SO was in the first 3.

 

1. Cottonmouth - pretty, light and florally which settles into a pretty floral vanilla sweetness (my fav outta the 5)

2. Australian Copperhead - fruity scent that gets lightly anchored with a musk of some sort (sorry I don't know what kind)

3. Coral Snake - tart apple with no hint of SO or any of the heavier deeper notes that I associate with SO

4. Temple Viper - it was ew, for me didn't get past that.. heavy scent

5. King Cobra - incense with SO - heavy scent

6. Boomslang - zomg, yum choccie SO

 

There's a thread about the Snake Pit Blends here if you want to check it out.

http://www.bpal.org/index.php?showtopic=38551

Edited March 19, 2010 by azurephoenix

[kraken]

Snake Oil does not like me, though aged Snake Oil is vaguely more palatable than brand new.

 

However, Boomslang is amazing! The other Snake Pit scents have all pretty much worked on me, but I do like Boomslang the best.

 

Lilith Victoria is also a winner.

[chaismolokom]

I'm starting to like SO now that my imp is approaching 18 months old. I'm one of those who thought it was too sharp and medicinal fresher. I'd say Saw-Scaled Viper is a good one to try if you like spicy scents - the Snake Oil is fairly overwhelmed on me. My current favorite SO blend, though, is The Phoenix. It's an aquatic I can wear! It was available in 2007, so the SO has smoothed out by now. I'm loving the sea air and lime, and the SO just lends a bit of vanilla sweetness to back it up.

[naeelah]

I've tried two blends lately that remind me a lot of Snake Oil blends, but that don't actually contain Snake Oil:

 

Now Winter Nights Enlarge - I guess the musks and patchouli (+ creaminess of the caramel) are in the right proportions here to invoke snake Oil -- at least, on my skin it does. (I see that at least one other reviewer mentions a SO resemblance, FWIW.) Naturally it isn't a dead ringer, but if you didn't like SO, that should be a good thing. So if SO was sorta close but no cigar, check this out.

 

Cthulhu in Love - this reminds me a lot of Boomslang. I'm not sure if it has any musk, but I suppose there's something about the seaweeds that's a little rubbery and oily feeling, to my nose. They also fill a woodsy niche similar to the teak, and the chocolates provide a creamy note like the rice milk, so yeah -- kinda like Boomslang without the SO.

 

ETA: Ahh, I remembered the third one: Love Me. Under nose it doesn't necessarily remind me of SO, but when it wafts at me, I feel like it's really similar! I guess the jasmine isn't so obvious when it's just wafting.

Edited March 21, 2010 by naeelah

[Juushika]

Another vote for Boomslang from me, but I think the key can be using it as a room scent or in a locket. The cocoa absolute vanishes on my skin and I don't think I'm the only one; using it almost any other way lets the cocoa stick around for ages. I actually don't get too much Snake Oil from it--it's mostly a undercurrent of liquid spices which help tame the cocoa so it never reaches foody.

 

I had wonderful results with Cottonmouth, which surprised the hell out of me because I dislike both Snake Oil and florals.

 

For the record, I find Snake Oil universally disappointing, but it doesn't do weird powdery things with my skin chemistry. New and aged, it goes on a little sickening, just "off" in a way that's hard to pin down, disappears during drydown, and remains just a hint of lovely dark vanilla during wear--but such an elusive little hint that there's no point in wearing it.

[CiaoBonefish]

The Snake oil in Green Tree Viper is divine! It gives a warm edge to the minty blend and the vanilla is really quite prominent. Love. I also love the Snake Oil in Asp Viper but it fades to a slightly smoky scent which is what Snake Oil originally did for me that I didn't love. I still LOVE Asp Viper though.

 

Unfortunately the cocoa disappears on my skin from Boomslang