Temple Viper

[Gin]

Snake Oil with sugar cane, frankincense, champaca, opoponax, labdanum, and hyssop.

Snake Oil tends to go powdery on me, and Temple Viper is like a powderier version of powdery Snake Oil. Plus frankincense, and maybe something very lightly fruity-floral? The weird thing is, I kind of like it. It makes me feel sneezy, though.

[Gateau]

This is the headshoppiest thing I've tried on in a long time!

 

Wet, I get mostly frankincense and a lily-like dry note, and just a hint of snake oil.

 

As it dries down, the sweet champaca starts to come out, and ends up absolutely dominating. If I sniff hard I can make out snake oil in the background, but it's strongly nag Champa-frankincense incense, and quite fruity-sweet. I get that grapiness everyone describes, too.

 

Not for me.

[Lorna Brigid]

Finally after all this time I got to try Temple Viper... and omg this is soaring into my top 10 in less than 24 hours on!!!

...it is Snake Oil mixed with...Michigan Renaissance Festival!! Lol Seriously! It must be the champaca. I think they burn champaca incense at Fest.

This isn't quite what I expected, but soooo good! Now I need the CD back so I can get 5 bottles!

[joyfulgirl]

gah, i had such high hopes for this one! in the bottle it's all herbs and resin. not getting any snake oil.

 

on my skin, it becomes bubble gum. like almost single-note bubble gum. boo.

 

off to swaps, i suppose. sadness.

[themeaningofV]

This is unfortunately going the same route as Coral Snake on me - the first few seconds are WONDERFUL, very sweet and incensey, and then it all kinda falls apart and smells really sharp, funky, and B.O.-like. I'm 50/50 with Snake Pit blends now. Darn.

 

eta: Whoa, now I'm getting that Sweet-Tarts/grape note weirdness. What a strange blend.

Edited August 22, 2013 by vthesiren

[Erinofhere]

Wonderful aged Snake oil with hints if grape kool aide, frankincense and resins.

I know that sounds strange but this works.

It's not my favorite. I think so far I just prefer my snake oil as is without anything added to it, but this is really nice.

No need for a big bottle for me, but I will get lots of wears out of this decant.

[Dedee]

This is the sweetest of the Snake Oil blends, not that that is a bad thing for me!!

 

When I first sniffed it I felt like a lot of others, it just got too sweet too quick, and there wasn't much of the Snake Oil scent I loved. But I must say it has grown on me, and now I am quite fond of it!! My skin tends to eat the few scents that work on it (i.e. they last only a few hours) and many that I love from the bottle my skin morphs into awfulness. So I have found that wearing the scents in my hair makes them last so much longer, and no worry of morphing what so ever. Temple Viper therefore stays a sweet wonderful Snake Oil, and I reach for it almost as much as Boomslang V2, and now even more than my beloved Snake Charmer!!

[Jangzonrice]

Got a bottle from ebay seller who is also a forum member. Wet: sweet snake oil with powdery frankincense and deepness from opoponax. There is a headshop overtone from the champaca. I like this a lot despite the sweetness. Dry: snake oil sweetened with more powderyness from the frankincense. I normally don't like powdery, but in this case it still works. Throw is great and I can still smell it after 4 hours, but now it is more of a skin-hugging scent.

[Magycmyste]

In the imp: Snake Oil - with a little bit of lightness on the very edge - I think the labdanum. It reminds me of some of the Phoenix Steamworks metal notes.

 

Wet on skin: Snake Oil, pretty much. I can smell the frankincense, but it's like it's not coming from my wrist, it's coming from somewhere else in the room.

 

Dried down: As it dries down, the Snake Oil is fading, but it's still there. The incense is a bit stronger now. I'm not sure I can pick up the champaca. But this does have that ethereal quality I tend to get from it. Dried down, it's this gorgeous, perfectly blended Snake Oil and incense. Sometimes when I sniff I get the Snake Oil, and sometimes, I get the dusty incense. And it's so soft!

 

Throw: Thi has a little bit of throw on me, but not a whole lot. The throw is mostly snake oil, with a touch of incense.

 

Verdict: ***** Yes, yes, and yes. I love this. Maybe not quite as much as Snake Oil, but I do like it for something a little bit different.

[Ava Lux]

As the reviewer above, I think it's Snake oil, with an herbal, quite resinus opening, quite hippie, but during the next steps it transforms until it becomes my adored Snake oil.It's he, the snake!

 

Love it!

Edited November 13, 2014 by Elmifra

[vanilla323]

This snake was a powdery little mess. I did smell delicious aged Snake Oil in the bottle but on the skin the other notes were making it powdery and a little too perfumey. I'm thinking it was the frankincense and incense maybe that did that. Although I'm not sure if it was the opoponax, labdanum, and hyssop. To be honest I'm not as familiar with these notes so they could be the culprits too. This was pretty underwelming for me. But the Snake Oil was the best part. The staying power wasn't very good either. Passed this little snake on...

[kscha2017]

My nose says Temple Viper is a deeper, richer, and darker Snake Oil with slightly less vanilla. It evokes exactly what it represents - a warm, dark, incense smoke-filled temple that's a tad frightening. It immediately made me think of Medusa from the old Clash of the Titans movie. After an hour or two, I'm picking up a deep purple/grape tone that reminds me of one of my favorites, Queen Gertrude. I'm not sure which component it is, but it fits. Like you were brave/faithful enough to put aside your fears in the temple and came out knowing you were blessed.

 

I wasn't going to get this one after reading reviews but I'm so glad I did. Will need Ordered another bottle. Out of the Snakes I chose, it's by far my favorite.

Edited April 23, 2016 by kscha2017

[mymymai]

2016 Version:

 

ITB: The scent is murky in its resinous tones, inky from the labdanum and somewhat sharply floral from the hyssop, pulling for attention, directing away from the more subtle notes.
Wet: I get less Snake Oil out of this one than the previous Snake Pit oils. It's more of a smoky minty chocolate, which I think might be from the combination of cane sugar, vanilla, and labdanum, although the floral tone still adds a touch of sharpness to the overall feel of the scent. Just under those notes is the serpentine, resinous tones of frankincense and opoponax, which reminds me of the temples hidden away in the mountains of Japan.
Dry: Gentle Indonesian oils and vanilla are evident, but it doesn't have much throw and stays very close to the skin. I think I can still detect a little bit of the resin, but it's so faint that I can't narrow it down to a single note.

[VetchVesper]

Ooooh I like this, and how.....

 

LOTS of champaca. This actually smells stronger of champaca to me than the recent Golden Champaca Single Note, which is great, cause I looooove me some champaca! There's also a rich sweetness I initially thought might be vanilla or honey, but later realized was the sugar cane. I smell the Snake Oil, but it's not the star of the show. I think it's probably what's deepening/strengthening the champaca. Sometimes frankincense goes baby powdery on me, b/ this one is behaving quite well. This has a good wear length on me.

 

This is delightfully sticky, sweet, resiny, champaca goodness. It's rich without being heavy, sweet without being cloying. Lovely lovely. Definitely a bottle contender.

Edited May 15, 2016 by VetchVesper

[suki]

In The Bottle: Champaca incense note. Straight up.

 

Wet On Skin: Same, but as my skin warms it up, I get slight hints of the Snake Oil underneath.

 

Dry Down: The champa settles in, becomes more incorporated. There's a sweet, soft roundness to the scent, and I'm acutely aware of the fact that SO on its own needs to age for me to really appreciate it. The other Snake Pit scents I've tried, it hasn't been an issue- I felt I was able to start wearing them right away. But this one, I can tell that it really needs a chance to age a bit, so that the various elements can really mingle with each other more completely.

 

But I like what I'm experiencing now- it's a promise of what the future will bring!

[The Forest Floor]

I fell in love with this one at first sniff. I can just faintly smell the Snake Oil lingering in there underneath the sweet, sugary, resiny goodness. I actually have a fairly strange way of describing this scent, which first requires me to explain that I live not far from a Wrigley's factory. Sometimes you can smell the scent of Double Mint for miles, and at other times it's Juicy Fruit. It's actually really pleasant. My favorite is the Juicy Fruit-scented air (and I'm not alone in that opinion)- it always makes me happy to pass by there when they are making Juicy Fruit! A month or two after buying my bottle of this scent, I happened to be passing by the Wrigley's factory with a cloud of soft Juicy-Fruit scent wafting from it, and I was overwhelmingly reminded of this perfume. It bears a curious sugary similarity!

So, to me, Temple Viper smells like I'm wearing Snake Oil and burning Nag Champa incense in my car with the windows open while passing by the Wrigley's Factory when they're making Juicy Fruit. Ha! And if that's a ridiculous way to describe a scent then so be it!

[Casablanca]

2016

 

Wet on my skin, Temple Viper makes me giddy with sugared champaca over resins and a lesser impact of Snake Oil. I smell the opoponax just a little more than the frankincense, and labdanum is also present.

Resins come to the fore of Temple Viper as it dries, with the spice of Snake Oil lurking beneath.

This blend sits right in a sweet spot of my tastes at the moment. It has filled out somewhat in the few days I've had it sit to settle, and I figure that will continue.

[galahad]

I love the snakes and I never grabbed a bottle of this one back when CD was last live although I did try a sample and vowed to get a bottle when the opportunity came up.

 

In the Bottle: Can just make out the SO in the background but it's mostly frankincense and champaca

 

On the Skin: The frank and champaca bloom pretty quickly but so does the snake oil to tame the rawness of those 2 elements on their own. 5 minutes in this really starts to show it's true potential with the sweetness of the vanilla and sugarcane nicely balancing with the resins and the herbal hyssop (which is faint to my nose).

 

The Drydown: This goes through a bit of a roller coaster ride with the snake oil and the resins alternating dominance, sometimes dry opopanax and frankincense and sometimes smooth rich snake oil. I never detect labdanum specifically (a component I love) but I am sure it is playing a supporting role. I love this and like all the snakes it will age to perfection (my 2008 Western Diamondback bottle is just coming into it's own right now).