Snake Oil

[Azrhiaz]

By far, our most popular scent! Magnetic, mysterious, and exceedingly sexual in nature. A blend of exotic Indonesian oils sugared with vanilla.

Oh, well-- my turn to add to the pile of Snake Oil reviews. *g*

I confess I almost wanted *not* to like it-- the side of me that immediately balks at whatever's most popular, combined with the fact that the name hardly invokes something wonderful for me. But with so much swooning going on, I had to see for myself.

Wet, it's medicinal, as others have noted, but not unpleasantly so. As it dries down I get more vanilla, and the spices warm up just gorgeously. It smells divine on me, but the thing that's most interesting to me is that holy cow, I feel *strong* wearing this. Like I really am a goddess. It doesn't immediately evoke sex for me in the way that Kali did, although it *is* sexy. It's sexy *because* it's strong, not because it's debauched. Haven't gotten any compliments (yet), but I'm a definite Snake Oil fan now. And I'll definitely be wearing it when I meet Elijah Wood. Heh.

[Eoywin]

Snake Oil is very vanilla to me... but a very yummy, foody vanilla that I just love...

 

the vanilla does mellow as it dry, but still smells great. This is one for the big bottle list...

 

Gosh, I wish I could write longer reviews... I seem to be able to only pick out one smell I recognized with each oil.

[stardust]

Initially: Nag champa, with vanilla and wonderful spices thrown in! Oooh!

 

After an hour or so: Gets a tiny bit medicinal on me.

 

Another hour: Aaah, that's better. No medicine. The vanilla and spices come out more.

 

Edited to add: This stuff has staying power, which is usually a problem for me. Hooray!

Another big bottle.

Edited November 24, 2004 by stardust

[yellowrose]

Snake Oil was included as a freebie in the latest order. Thanks Lab for the mondo terrific generosity.

 

I must admit I didn't want to have expectations before trying Snake Oil, but the forum posts lauding its wonderful vanilla-ness seemed to be every where and completely unavoidable. The color in the vial was a bit off-putting and I was fearful the experience with the generic "spices" might be the same for me as they had been with (Old) Morocco and I didn't want the disappointment. Of course being a huge ho' fo' the orchid bean, I finally gave it a whirl.

 

I'm really not crazy about this in the wet stage at all. It's very aggravating. My internal opinion-o-meter kept waflling as I was sniffing and driving. The spices of (Old) Morocco and several other spicy scents are here, but not overwhelmingly so. There was some medicinal pings and a bit of baby powder that I didn't care for, but I decided to hold on even tho' I did fear a headache.

 

In short: A real love-hate. Why? There's precious little of the much- and often-touted vanilla until the absolute driest stage possible. Then the vanilla is a lightly-spiced almost-sweet scent. I'm going to keep trying this to see if it or I change.

 

The ultimate vanilla this is not, but I'll keep looking. I want a dark, deep and rich, non-foody vanilla and I haven't yet found it.

[ashtonrose]

All I can say is yummy!! I have never been a big fan of vanilla, but this scent is great. I don't know what I can say that hasn't been said before.

[Red_Hot_Mama]

Snake Oil in it's "fresh from the lab" form did not work well on me.

 

However, there was a thread discussing how Snake Oil changes with age. So of course, I had to try it again. After all, how could Beth's number one blend NOT work on me?

 

I have tried several "ages" of Snake Oil, thanks to several members of our online forum (Boots, kimmer & lorajc, so far).

 

Here's what I found.

 

Snake Oil ages like a very fine scotch. It gets better & better, deeper, richer more mellow. It's probably due to the resins in this blend. Whatever the reason for it's improvement, if Snake Oil didn't "work" for you, you owe it to yourself to try an aged rendition of this incomparable blend.

 

At six months it begins to darken in color & thicken in consistency. That's ok, only a tiny, tiny amount is needed to produce the most exquisite sillage and unbelievable staying power.

 

I am throughly enjoying my "gran dame" Snake Oil!

[etherealchild]

In the Bottle Spice. Dark, warm spice. I an unable to pick out a single note.

 

Wet SUGAR. Vanilla and sugar. Holy crap this is sweet. I'ts almost too much. Smells like BBW Warm Vanilla Sugar.

 

Drydown It's now a nice spicey blending with the vanilla. I am unable to isolate any paticular note besides the vanilla, however. At this stage I was told that "It's a really nice Christmas scent, Nina, it smells like I should be cuddling with you. This is a cuddle with me perfume."

 

Two Hours Later I can't smell much of it anymore, but I am getting interesting reactions. Two of my guy friends who aren't really touchy feely with me, Pete in paticular, were definetly last night. It seems to only attract certain types of guys however. Guys whose girlfriends are away at school, and they want to simply feel another girl, ya know? Nice guys who want a nice little girl. These types of guys aren't the ones I go after, but hey. And the funny thing is last night, at like 4, there were a whole bunch of people on the couch drunk watching movies, and we were all cuddly with one another, and the guy sitting with my friend Asa, was being extra snuggly with her, and kept commenting on how good she smelled. He then goes, "I really like vanilla on girls, you smell good." My friend starts cracking up. She's like "you are just getting wiffs of Nina." Ashame it doesn't work so well on bad boys

 

Verdict it's nice for the holidays. I'm not much of a Vanilla person, so I'll probably trade it or something. On a side note, it stained my skin yellow.

Edited December 5, 2004 by etherealchild

[closedacct]

I got this in my first order from the Lab. The first time I tried it, I wasn't impressed. It was very light and I had so many others that I loved(Sin and Blood Amber), so I put it aside. Well, I like to do a random draw with my imps, and I came up with Snake Oil. OMG. I slathered it on my neck, back, hair and arms. Evidently, I need to use a bunch to get the desired smell, but holy shit. I was floating in a cloud of spicy vanilla goodness. This is definately one of my favorites. I find it very comforting and calming. It puts me in a great mood as soon as I smell it. Oh, and it lasts foreeeevvvveeerrr. Yum.

[TheDarkMother]

Oh boy, more vanilla! Yay!

 

In the Bottle: Spicy vanilla, in fact, just the spices that I’ve been looking for for some time. I am definitely excited about trying this one.

 

On Me: Wow, that’s certainly different! Its really hard to tell what’s in this one, it blends so well together. The spices aren’t sharp at all, more dulled and all blended together with the vanilla sweetening it all together. Maybe some nutmeg or something, but its so hard to tell. The scents don’t just pop out like they normally do with me on this one. The only thing that I can identify without a doubt is that yummy, gooey vanilla scent.. Maybe a bit of honey as well, since this seems to me to be a glowing, warm oil. Not cinnamon though, because that usually takes over a scent. Definitely a keeper, definitely what I was looking for, and definitely a bigger bottle. This is just what I needed to get the creative juices flowing for a story I’m writing. Between this and my Chaos Theory, I’m set.

[luxuria]

I love the initial slightly spiced sweetness. No, correction, I ADORE it. However, it fades to powdery and then just to a rather masculine-smelling spicy. I'll have to try layering this with my vanilla bean single note to see if I can prolong the sweetness.

 

[edit]

Layering with the Vanilla Bean worked with phenominal results. I am violently in love with this. And I still like it a lot even on it's own now..what is it with Snake Oil and taking time to warm up to it? It's sooo worth it though..*smells wrist for the 100000000000th time*

 

[edit again] The lasting power of this is null on my skin- I envy those who can call it strong! I've also noticed that on certain days this smells very dusty. I guess this is sort of hit-or-miss, but the "hit" days make it by far my favorite BPAL blend thus far.

 

This is a very multi-purpose oil. If i'm feeling more confident and sexy I can go with the "manlier", unlayered Snake Oil, or I can layer with Vanilla Bean to give it some more creamy oomph.

Edited January 17, 2005 by luxuria

[Pixie-elf]

Okay, here's my review of Snake Oil.... it's gonna take me a minute to explain this LOL

 

Mmkay, a day or two ago, I put some on my right Wrist....

 

Basically, it turned int osomething I'm not a fan of.... Vanilla and spices... Not sweet, just spicy vanilla....

 

Today I tried it on my left wrist....

 

IT TURNED INTO COTTON CANDY. O_O It's -really- nice, I like it a lot, so I'll just have to wear something else on my left wrist I guess... LOL. I hope that makes sense...

 

In other words, make sure you try something on both wrists, because you might get a surprize. LOL.

[surf-tormented]

Snake Oil is a great scent, but doesn't live up to all its hype. The vanilla in it is a bit too much for me. It smells like spicy goodness corrupted with vanilla sugar honey. I find Morocco smells a lot like it without the vanilla sugar, so that is more like me. I'll never know why people like vanilla so much. 'Tis a mystery.

 

My imp has lasted me a long time though. This one is strong and lasts for hours. At the end, the vanilla goes and I am left with a nice spice scent. But I can find it elsewhere in other oils.

[sh1mm3r]

This makes me want to go slip into some sexy lingerie and just stay home all day. Exactly the kind of scent I was looking for!

 

Mine starts out spicier, then turns a little flat and tinny, and then the vanilla and spices warm up together to a nice velvety scent that sticks around quite a while.

 

[yaluna]

Nummmmmyyyyy.

 

On wet, the vanilla is a little stronger, but once it dries it's delicious.

[stardreamer]

First thing noticed: this is a viscous oil, much thicker than most of the other blends. I also noticed that it left a faint yellowy-green stain on my wrists, from which I surmise that care should be taken to avoid contact between light-colored clothing and this oil.

 

Immediate scent impression: vanilla and incense, but not the heavy patchouli/sandalwood sort of incense; it's something lighter, possibly with jasmine. More of a "60s head shop" kind of aroma than "metaphysical store". And it's strong, ye ghods! Of course, I probably got more oil on me than normal due to the viscosity, but I'll have to remember to apply this one very sparingly in future.

 

I can see why this is a very popular scent! It's sweet but complex; the vanilla keeps it light and the incense makes it sophisticated. I kept getting whiffs of it all afternoon as I was out running around with friends. They liked it too, as did the owner of one of the shops (who makes scented soaps by hand, so I consider that an expert opinion).

 

As time wore on, the vanilla seemed to fade faster than the incense, leaving it slightly unbalanced and not quite as satisfying as earlier. Yeah, there's definitely some jasmine in there. OTOH, it's now 14 hours after application and I'm still catching whiffs that smell like the fresh oil; it's only when I actually sniff at my wrists that I get the heavier dose of incense. Hmmm, maybe some got onto the collar of my T-shirt and that's what I'm whiffing...

 

I like this a lot, but I don't think it's going to be an everyday scent for me. R. didn't like it at all when fresh (possibly because I'd put on too much), but found it more tolerable hours later -- though he did ask me to wash it off before I go to bed so he won't have a headache in the morning. I don't want to smell this strong all the time, but a light dab of it for an evening out would be very nice indeed. It would also probably be very good to layer over a vanilla body-scrub or lotion, to keep the scent going longer.

[Macha]

I didn't really want to like Snake Oil either. Just the contrariness in me, but I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm still up in the air on it.

 

Because I'd purchased a number of bottles at the same time, my boyfriend managed to..err...snake this before I got to it. All right...I DID tell him that he could wear any of BPAL stuff he wanted, and there's a couple of fragrances (Cathode, Villain) that are pretty much "his only."

 

Oh, it smells glorious on him. Just beautiful. It's all vanilla spice and goodness and when he puts on his Burt's Bees lip balm (mint scented) the combination of smells that wafts from him is absolutely divine. Cannot keep my hands off him.

 

The first time I wore it, I didn't get quite so good a reaction, but I liked it.

 

The second time it turned to Play-do. You know that stuff we all played with as a kid? That smell? That's exactly what Snake Oil smelled like on me. Yeegads! It didn't go away, either. It stayed smelling like that the entire day with all the longevity that Snake Oil is famous for. Oh, and it did stain too.

 

So...I'm not sure if this is a time of the month thing or something else. It was not that time on either occassion, so the differences in smells is interesting. I haven't given up hope just yet, but so far, not so good. I suspect I'll try it a few more times, maybe let it age a bit, and see if that will mellow out the results. To quote someone else on the boards..."stupid, stupid body chemistry."

 

It sure does smell nice on the BF though, so it's still a keeper.

[couscous]

Count me in as yet another rabid snake oil fan

 

Wet, it smelled just like sweet vanilla syrup, and I didn't like it. Once on, however, it turned into spicy vanilla- like my current favorite, Scherezade, only stronger and with a strong vanilla note.

 

After the initial application, it stayed pretty true to the spiced-vanilla impression. It's foody, more so than any other scent I've worn, but its sexy and hot and feminine and it...it just blows all of my preconceived notions about "sweet" perfume out of the water.

 

I will buy a 5ml of this, with more to come as I go through it

[Julilla Regina]

It seems there are schools of thought on "aged" Snake Oil versus new. When I got my imps, I was surprised to see the Snake Oil I was sent had the old string label on it. It was a very dark brown and quite thick. I'm assuming this was an older vintage?

 

It really is thicky vanilly sticky oooiyness. If you dig food scents, this is so for you. It reminded me of my childhood actually, and Lotions and Potions French Vanilla lotion I remember from the '70's. There is something dark in it that keeps it from being too sweet, but I couldn't pick it out. It was luscious, though. It was all about sexy earth mother-ness, with the sweet food smell and the dark mystery something. Very Nigella from that cooking show on BBC. I think she'd wear this. She'd be scantily clad and rolling out cookie dough and licking her fingers. That's Snake Oil.

Edited January 3, 2005 by Julilla Regina

[lunalight7]

OK this is weird....

 

I just posted a little while ago on another thread that I was disappointed by Snake Oil....now, I have to eat my words....

 

I received my first BPAL order today around 3 o clock and I immediately applied Snake Oil because, of the 16 imps I received, THIS was the one I had high hopes for. Alas, nothing but coconut hair grease. No spice, no amber, no nothin but coconuts. I was SOOOO disappointed and washed it off a half hour later as it had not changed at all. I proceeded to try and review the other 15 imps.

 

Now, at 11:30 pm, I decided to try Snake Oil again because I could not accept the fact that this would not work for me....

 

SURPRISE!!!! Same oil, same day, different wrist, TOTALLY different scent-sation.

 

Snake Oil is beautiful....warm, exotic, spicy, and golden....as I type this, the vanilla peeks out slightly, adding a lovely sweetness to this oil. Bloody sexy...I can't wait to get a big bottle to make bath salts, lotion, and whatever else I can think of to cloak myself in this scent. I will sleep in it tonite in hopes of erotic dreams....I could drink this, I love it so....

 

Give Snake Oil a chance if it didn't rock your world at first try...

[magikfanfic]

In the bottle: This smells so good. Like a heavy vanilla liquor. With caramel and spices and sugar. So sweet and rich. And thick. Can I drink it?

 

Wet: Bright gold on my wrist. Very vanilla and thick spices with still the slightly alcholic tilt to it. It smells good to me. Like the vanilla brown sugar lotion I get from Bath and Body works but with a little more spice added in. Very sweet.

 

Dry down: My wrist is still colored gold. There's more spice to this now. The vanilla is very present in the throw, though. It's not as sweet right up on my wrist. In fact, I cannot descirbe what my wrist smells like. But the vanilla/spice throw is fabulous and then some. Still that alcohol bent to it, but still sweet in the throw.

 

Dry: Up close this smells a lot like the inscense I don't like in things like Penitence and The Caterpillar. The throw is sweet and vanilla-scented, though, so I don't understand. These are nice spices, though. It reminds me of chai, really. A very thick, very sweet, very wrist turning gold kind of chai. With some incense that's apparent only when my nose is on my wrist. Cloves. It smells like cloves. Hmmm. I don't know about this one. I'll have to wear it some more. I think I may be an O rather than a Snake Oil girl.

[thespring]

Very strong, a little does go a really long way...

 

It's just one of those scents that if you don't like heavy scents, you'll simply hate it and vice versa.

 

Some people who smell it on me say its amazing and some people say I stink... sigh...

 

Many people say this is a sexy scent and I do tend to agree but its sexy in a conventional sense. I mean the term sexy means very different things to very different people.

 

Try it though, I adore it, on me its very incensy, dark sweet vanilla.

Edited January 20, 2005 by thespring

[byrdie]

Note ~ I’m trying this oil on day 1.5 of my period, and it’s going better than a previous try did when I first got it a few months ago.

 

Bottle ~ like a pleasant meeting between Aureus and Tombstone. Smoky, sweet sarsaparilla, wood smoke and golden light. Heavenly.

 

Wet ~ Very smoky initially, then a cotton candy sweetness comes through.

 

Drying ~ The two smells are merging a bit into a muted sweet wood smoke scent again. It’s a smell reminiscent of an old-fashioned, polished-wood bar that’s seen years of sweet liqueurs and fine-quality pipe tobacco.

 

Dry ~ Mmmm. This is Tombstone’s more delicate sister. It’s also slightly less bright than Aureus – more sexy. If Aureus is golden light, then Snake Oil is the sultry orange light that some sunrises and sunsets can cast. I’m getting a slightly incensy / amberish note from it that’s nearly visceral.

 

Fade ~ Two hours later, it’s lighter, but still has that wonderful smoky sweetness.

 

Final Thoughts ~ Again, mmmm. For people who’ve found either Tombstone or Aureus too strong, I’d definitely recommend the infamous Snake Oil. It’s very purdy, and I’m seriously considering investing in a big bottle.

Edited January 23, 2005 by byrdie

[Serenity]

Sadly, add me to the "does not like Snake Oil" camp. All I smell is Ambery Powder when it dries down, and I have to go wash it off.

[Diana]

From the vial, wet, and through drydown, the scent didn't ever really change much. It was sort of a smokey-incensey spiced vanilla. For some reason it was really similar (to my nose at least) to the sweet vanilla in Blood Kiss. It was not super sweet like Sugar Skull, and the complexity of the vanilla wasn't like anything I've ever encountered before.

 

I really like this! I think I'll wait to get the big bottle, as my list of 5mls is rather embarrassingly long.

[EvilKitten]

Snake oil was one of the first oils I ever tried. I didn't like it then.

 

I decided to give it anohter chance now that my nose has had a chance to refine itself - and boy, am I glad it did.

 

Wet in the imp, it smells all vanilla-y.

 

On me, a wonderful spicy warm vanilla sweet sexy scent. My god how could I have not liked this?

 

It's beautiful. And now I understand the hype.