Boomslang

[tailoredshirt]

Snake Oil with cocoa, teakwood, and rice milk.

In the bottle: Spicy dark chocolate, slightly musty.

Wet: Same, only mustier. Smells more like patchouli than chocolate, actually! Also, it is incredibly dark and thick. It looks like I just swabbed my pale arm with iodine. I need a vial of clear, odorless carrier oil to mix over some of these darker blends!

Dry: I'm still getting patchouli, mostly. Some wood and dark chocolate, some spices way in the background. This is gritty, not sweet. I am not getting any of the vanilla or rice milk. Except oh, there's a whiff. I'm only getting a tiny bit of the vanilla.

Twenty minutes in and I'm really not feeling this. :/ I love patchouli as an accent note, but on me this is nothing but patchouli with a hint of chocolate, wood, and vanilla. Vanilla tends to amp on me, and even as I type this I am getting more of it, but it's really not enough to balance the mustiness of the other elements. An hour later and it isn't changing at all.

Overall: Musty patchouli over a very thin layer of dark chocolate, wood, spices and vanilla. The patchouli completely drowns out the rest for me, so this doesn't work for me, but I can see where it would be a really decadent scent on others.

[FireWolf]

I don't know why but Boomslang makes me think of baking dark chocolate, gooey brownies while wearing nothing but candy apple red stiletto heels. But maybe that's just me.

[Myrrha]

I tried this again after falling in love with Vice to see if I like it better than the first time I tried it.

 

Wet: The chocolate note is sweeter than the chocolate in Vice. I like it.

 

As it dries: The vanilla, a soft creamy note, and the Snake Oil (sort of like Shalimar) come out and waft around.

 

Dry: Unfortunately the rich chocolate note fades quite a bit and I'm left with something like Shalimar but sweeter and rounder. It smells OK, but not really wonderful. Other reviews have said there is patchouli in this and usually I don't like patchouli at all but here it must be blended in really well because I don't notice it. Is there tobacco in this? It reminds me of those chocolate cigarettes.

 

Very little throw, medium lasting power. This is one that I can imagine other people might think it smells like baby powder.

Edited May 10, 2010 by Myrrha

[SophieCedar]

Chocolate is strong at first then mellows a bit. The SO stays solid throughout and the vetivert comes out more in the drydown, giving this a "dry chocolate" feel. Nice and not too sweet.

[hkath]

Dear Boomslang,

 

Everyone knows you smell divine. Personally, my favourite bit of you is when the sweetness of rice milk starts peeking through the cocoa/Snake Oily goodness. You make me melt, and that's no small feat!

 

But the absolute best part of you is your staying power. Remember when we went to that concert the other night, and got drenched in sweat, and then rain, and then sweat again (ours and other people's, probably). Remember how through all of that you were right there with me rocking out, and you drove me home afterwards?

 

You're a gentleman, Boomslang. Never change

[arlith]

When I first put this on, I get the lovely spicy chocolate that most of the people are talking about. Then it turns into just Snake Oil. I'd have to do a side-by-side test to see if its different at all once it dries, to me it doesn't seem different. If there is a difference that lasts beyond drying, I don't see it as a big enough one to want both a bottle of Snake Oil and Boomslang.

[sunlitgarden]

Boomslang (fresh)

 

In the bottle: Chocolate, with undertones of Snake Oil.

 

Wet, it's a creamy chocolatey Snake Oil and then as it dries a bit more the teak wood comes out. It has a lovely spicy smoky feel. I like this a lot, it adds deepness and richness to SO. There's an almost minty quality as well when sniffing from a distance.

 

Edit: Uh oh... I'm getting slight BO-whiffs from the patchouli. It's not constant, but occasionally it happens and isn't too pleasant..

Edited August 2, 2010 by sunlitgarden

[Sultaana]

I don't smell as much of the chocolate in the Snake Oil as I was hoping, I think it's almost TOO perfect a compliment as the Snake Oil really swallows it.

[mxtine]

Someone dumped cocoa powder in my Snake Oil! It's that dark and rich. I don't smell rice milk or teakwood but that's probably what's keeping this from smelling like pure chocolate candy on my skin. I love fresh Snake Oil by itself but this bottle could be 10x smoother with age.

[Nymeria]

Mmmmm... delicious! When I first tried Snake Oil, I was bummed because it was nice, but nothing special or bottle worthy. But add a little cocoa to it and HELLO! It becomes awesome. The cocoa is nice because it gives you that chocolatey sweetness without being foody or going overboard, and the spices from the Snake Oil make it rich, intriguing, and delicious. Guh! So good!

 

Good for wearing: whenever I want to smell AWESOME.

Edited September 19, 2010 by Nymeria

[childoftime]

Oh my goodness, this is fantastic!

 

I believe my partial bottle is very nicely aged, and it smells like heaven! I've tried cocoa scents before, and have had some problems with them going to powder on me, which is heartbreaking. This, on the other hand, even after I waited through the whole drydown, never does hit powdery.

 

Boy, is this stuff THICK, though! When I rubbed my wrists together and then brought it to my neck, it was like trying to rub honey into my skin. I knew it was thick from the way it moved in the bottle, but wow! This stuff is divinely cocoaed Snake Oil, with just hints of the other notes peeking out. Absolutely marvelous!

[Penance]

Origin:

 

5mL from the Lab (fresh) and 5mL from a LJ purchase (aged 1 year or more).

 

Preconceived notions:

 

I love Snake Oil (only when it's aged, though, fresh has a strange sort of aftersmell, if there is such a thing, to it that I don't care for) and I'm learning to love cocoa if done right, so I'm thinking this is going to be a real winner. I have a feeling that the aged version is going to be a bigger winner than the fresh, considering my feelings about Snake Oil.

 

First sniff:

 

Fresh bottle: This smells strongly like Snake Oil with just a bit of cocoa. Not chocolate like candy, more like cocoa powder but not dry and dusty. If cocoa powder could be moist, this is what it would smell like. The notes are well-blended, but they don't seem to have completely melded together because they're distinct from one another.

 

Aged bottle: Mmm, even better. It smells like the Snake Oil and cocoa have melded now. I don't smell cocoa and Snake Oil. I smell chocolatey, musky, spicy Snake Oil truffles. Which smell delicious, but probably taste terrible.

 

Wet on skin:

 

Fresh bottle: Where'd the chocolate go? This is almost entirely fresh Snake Oil on me. Musky, a little spicy, a little vanilla-ish and a little funky. I get the barest hint of chocolate here, but most of it seems to have disappeared somewhere along the way. Not a huge issue, since I can always use another bottle of Snake Oil to set aside for aging, even if that Snake Oil is Boomslang, but disappointing, since I was hoping for a new twist on an old favorite.

 

Aged bottle: Aha! There's the chocolate! I guess it's another instance of the scents not melding completely when they're fresh, because the aged bottle yields a delicious musky, spicy chocolate scent that's a cousin of Calaveras and Dark Chocolate, Whiskey and Cognac Truffle on me. They're all in the same family of "grown up", naughty chocolate scents, and Boomslang is a welcome addition to the family.

 

Dry down:

 

Fresh bottle: Still nearly pure, fresh Snake Oil. It's still got that strange "offness" to it that I get from un-aged SO, with just a hint of very light cocoa. If I didn't know there was chocolate in this, I think I probably wouldn't notice the extra faint chocolatiness.

 

Aged bottle: This gets muskier as it dries and ends up a perfect hybrid of aged Snake Oil and that delicious cocoa note from my favorite chocolates (Calaveras and Dark Chocolate, Whiskey and Cognac Truffle). It's got that almost fruity red musk warmth, with subtle spices, vanilla and a rich, moist cocoa (again, it's definitely cocoa and not, say, a chocolate bar, but the scent is somehow moist rather than dry and powdery).

 

The bottom line:

 

Fresh, I could take it or leave it. I like it about as well as I like fresh Snake Oil, which is to say it's fine, but it has the potential to turn into something much, much better. Aged? Beautiful stuff. And I can tell it's going to get even better, the older it gets, just like Snake Oil does. I'm really looking forward to letting both bottles mature even more, but I'll be using my pre-aged bottle immediately, since it's already at a point where it's delicious. Considering the amount of BPAL I own, it'll still have plenty of time to develop even more richness before I finish it off.

[Incendiare]

Boomslang just may be the love of my life. Snake Oil and I weren't exactly BFF in the beginning, but after a month of aging, I grew to love it. Oh my, add some cocoa and a bit of sweetness from rice milk too and I am speechless. Snake Oil lingers in the background and the teakwood blends in with the Snake Oil while the cocoa and rice milk sit on top. I need multiple bottles of this and will be extremely sad when it's gone.

[ih8perfume]

Arrgh. For the love of god. This is the 3rd time I've tried to post a review. It must be an evil computer day. Its a good thing I love you, Boomslang.

 

OK - confession time... I have not yet tried Snake Oil. I just got a frimp from my new pal, Stellans, so I'll test it "sooner" rather than "later" and edit my review after the comparison.

 

Dark spicy cocoa, almost like mexican hot chocolate, but with chai spices like black pepper and cardamom instead of cinnamon and chilis.

 

Next is TEAK TEAK TEAK-ety TEAK. Which is OK with me. Boats are often outfitted with teak, so this has very pleasant and expensive associations for me. On me it's teak sawdust. Fresh and strong, but from bone-dry, well seasoned wood.

 

There's also vetiver (?), something murky and dank and earthy that keeps this from floating up into the ether. This may be an element of the teak, though, because my nose keeps turning it into a sweeter agarwood/aloeswood/jing-koh.

 

Then a warm, sweet spiced vanilla or rice milk scent will peek through to keep it from all being too heavy and dark.

 

I am at the 12 hour mark and still surrounded my a swirling miasma of loveliness. I'll get little hits of each of the above notes, with STRONG black pepper with a sweet edge, as they swirl and mix around me. I smell my wrists and get a fairly generic sweet spiced vanilla, so I'm not sure where all the complicated notes are hiding on my skin. And somehow, this blends with and enhances my own personal funk (or musk, if you will) so that it smells like an amped yummy, spicy/sweet version of my own skin.

 

It usually takes me 3 - 4 wearing spaced over a few days for me to decide if I like a scent. This was perfection at moment one. And the only fragrance I have ever tried that was an unequivocal YES.

 

Boomslang says: I can bring home the bacon, watch the cook fry it up in a pan, and NEVER let you forget you're a man.

[Ishtar]

In the imp: dark and rich, both in colour and smell. I agree with the previous reviewers: the cocoa here is very reminiscent of Velvet, dry and (nicely) gritty, rather than the Lab's chocolate note.

 

Even though the cocoa is very noticeable at first, it fades quite fast. I can't say that I detect any rice milk at all, and I might be getting a hint of teakwood every now and then, but maybe that's just my imagination.

 

On me, Boomslang is like a somewhat richer-smelling version of Snake Oil - and thus, absolutely delicious. It doesn't change much from start to finish, once the initial burst of cocoa goes away.

[RhinestoneHousewife]

Quite possibly my favorite of the snake pit. In the bottle I get SO and baking cocoa powder. It starts smelling a little more of the patchouli on my skin and then settles into a dark, dirty and sexy chocolate/SO blend. I love it. Oh and yes, this stuff is thick and dark!

[valnillarose]

Snake Oil is my first love, but Boomslang is a very close 2nd. Fresh out of the bottle, it's dark fudgy chocolate, perhaps made even creamier by the rice milk even though rice milk is not a distinguishable note to me, and the teakwood stays in the background as well. Upon drydown it's Snake Oil, but not quite! The chocolate recedes to leave not much more than the spicy warm drydown of SO, and lasting power seems to be a bit less than SO itself. Which is perfectly OK, because reapplying means smelling that rich chocolate all over again!

[Helas]

I normally *hate* chocolate-scented perfumes, whether they are from mainstream manufacturers or from BPAL. They smell too rich and cloying and make me feel as though I have been gorging on triple chocolate brownies all day long. Vice, Bliss, and How Doth the Little Crocodile all make me nauseous in the vial and I have not been able to give them a fair trial.

 

In Boomslang, I have found a unicorn - a chocolate scent that does not make me sick.

 

It smells a bit too rich for me in the vial, although there is a spiciness in the background that makes it more palatable than the aforementioned scents to me. I apply it to my skin with some wariness, and fall in love immediately. The chocolate is like raw, bitter cocoa dust to me, with a kind of dirty, spicy vibe that makes me think there may be patchouli in the blend even though it is not mentioned in the ingredients' list. The rice milk strikes me as smart choice - it is sweeter, but more watery and less creamy than regular milk and keeps the chocolate from becoming too rich and buttery. The smoky vanilla that I have begun to identify as the Snake Oil component wafts gently in the background. Utterly delicious but in a surprisingly non-foody kind of way.

 

On drydown, the cocoa note fades and the woody teak note which is absent in the wet phase comes to the foreground. I find myself missing the cocoa.

 

I get what all the fuss about this one is about, and I may find myself needing a bottle soon. Five out of five stars.

[subtlesiren]

Mmm, chocolatey Snake Oil. I was fearing this would go too far into the gourmand and too far away from SO, but it is more of a sexy, warm, dusty chocolate. It is a dark, deep chocolate, mellowed out with the rice milk and sweetened with the sugared vanilla from SO. The teak starts to emerge on the dry down, adding an unexpected complexity to the scent. This is by far the darkest, sludgiest BPAL oil so far. It looks like chocolate syrup!

[OctoberGwen]

I'm using an aged version of this (no later than 2007) and it is diviiiine.

 

I actually like it better on me than Snake Oil, I think. The cocoa and rice milk give it a rounder, softer edge which is perfect with the exotic spicy/resiny smell. The cocoa dusting pretty much stays put, but it does get a little more subtle as this dries down. Love, love this. I'll be wearing it constantly come Winter, I'll bet. It's delicious!

 

The Carnaval is going dark, so I would advise anyone who doesn't have this one yet to grab it. It ages really, really well.

 

 

ETA: 2/13/12

Just checking back in to say that yes, my eyes still roll to the back of my head when I smell this. I now have three bottles - my only multi-bottle scent. Boomslang is fantastic.

 

ETA: 4/24/12

I wanted to note that Boomslang is one of only three scents that I can wear during Shark Week, and in fact it almost smells better at that time. I worship this oil, it's the best of the Snake Pit scents, and I will hoard many bottles when the Carnaval returns.

Edited April 24, 2012 by OctoberGwen

[angelamaria]

(an aged bottle)

 

In bottle: first off, I slowly made circles in the air with the bottle in my hand to have the oils mix together, as I've read in places that sometimes the oils can separate. When I opened the bottle, I saw dark flakes in the neck where I presume the oil got into as I did my circling--which I have also read in some cases. I just thought it was interesting to note that Anyway, to continue-- in the bottle, I mostly get cocoa. Not chocolate--but cocoa. Not foody to my nose. I'm also getting the snake oil. So it really is basically cocoa in snake oil.

 

Wet on skin: hmm, this is actually lighter on my skin than in the bottle--by that, I mean, not as heavy and not that incense-y. I can small the snake oil, but it's in the background; it feels like single-note cocoa right now. It's slightly foodier, and somewhat sweeter, but I still wouldn't call this a foody scent. It's also...slightly powdery. This does not bode well.

 

Dry: noooooo. Powder, and lots of it. My Snake Oil review talks about oily powder, and while this is not "oily powder", it's all powder still. At least it doesn't make me want to hurl. If I get to ignore the powder, I'm getting the cocoa, the teak, and maaaaaybe a bit of the rice milk. But...yeah. Powder. Sob.

 

Verdict: I think that kind of settles it--because of Snake Oil turning into powder for me (I really wish I knew exactly what that was), I'm willing to be ALL blends with an element of Snake Oil will turn into this ghastly powder. Oh well, can't really do anything about it, I guess.

[stellamaris]

Holy Moly.

Best Snake Ever.

Delicious. The chocolate stays only for a bit, and leaves a most heavenly version of Snake Oil. It did remind me of Shalimar, which is OK by me. Shalimar is a perfume I have loved my entire life and can't wear, as it makes my skin break out in red welts. yeech.

[Urpflanze]

Wet: tootsie roll absolute

Dry: My skin eats it up; I get a light snake oil scent and a phantom whisp of cocoa. My skin is still stained yellow but I can barely smell it.

 

I had hoped the teakwood would come out more, making this a little drier and less sweet than snake oil but no such luck. Ah well, my lady will be pleased. Since it was a birthday present it would be pretty shabby of me to start using it on the regular anyhow!

[Honey]

Thanks to the lovely ChaosKitty I received a little Boomslang sniffy - and threw two of my dislikes over board.

 

 

1) It has vanilla in it. It is sooooooo delicious and not like hot plastic at all! Oh, snake oil!

2) It has cocoa in it. Oh, so yummy! So rich and dark and orgasmic.

 

I love this! Either in the imp or wet or dry, it's all dark chocolate cocoa with light vanilla and creamy spices on me!

[calivianya]

I just have to say whoa! This oil is dark. Really dark. Chocolate brown in color - I'm not going to be able to wear this on visible skin as I am a very fair-skinned person, and this is even darker than my freckles!

 

I smell sweet, rich chocolate immediately. After a minute or so, the chocolate calms down a bit and the Snake Oil shows through. This smells like a perfect cocoa and Snake Oil mix. It honestly smells how I would expect those Mayan chocolates to smell. I've never had one or smelled one, but that's what this blend makes me think of. It's foody, but not too foody. I can see how people who love foody smells and people who don't could all enjoy this.