forspecial_plate

Mmm...I love the lemon balm. However...the scent is doing something a little bit powdery in the throw. It smells really great up close with that citrus tang. Lots of herbs in there too...I wonder what's going powdery? Either myrrh or possibly orris? For me wearing myrrh can be like flipping a coin...I've got a 50/50 chance of it working on my skin. Not sure about Polyhymnia, I may end up keeping it for a while. But with so many other scents competing for my attention this one might not get a lot of wear.

Arachne is a chilly floral scent with lots of herbs. At first I thought there was some citrus...maybe a touch of verbena? I can smell the woods too. Pretty scent but not something I would wear. I don't know what florals are in it but they're not any of the ones I like.

Asp Viper starts out strongly almond scented. The almond fades after a little while, and then it's an uncomplicated myrrh scent with just a touch of Snake Oil and a little dusty almond still there. I didn't smell mandarin at all the two times I wore it. This doesn't smell bad at all, but for some reason I just don't feel very excited about it. Out of the whole Snake Pit, this was one that I thought I would like a lot and ended up not liking as much. Edit: Whoa, I was on the verge of swapping this, and decided to try it again today. It is 10x better today for some reason. The almond is staying around longer, the Snake Oil is adding warmth and spice, it's not turning dusty....sweet smokey almonds, this is good.....lol.....maybe I should try Cottonmouth again, too, since I thought I didn't like that one either....

I really enjoyed Western Diamondback when I stopped trying to analyze it and just wore it. It's all about the throw for me, and that's a sweet, warm Snake Oil with a little dry herbs. There is very little leather that I can smell. Up close the sage is stronger, and the sandalwood is there, too. I forget which Snake Pit scent has smoked vanilla...but when I wore this I kept thinking it had smoked vanilla, so I guess that's the tonka bean, and it's the strongest note in the blend for me. I would venture to say that if you like the vanilla part of Snake Oil, or just the sweetness of it and not the spices or patchouli, then this might work well for you. It's another winner for me.

Coral Snake is one of the 2 Snake Pits that I was thinking of swapping. So today, I tried it again. I'm really glad I did because it turns out that I like it enough to keep! In the bottle it's mostly apple...and a realistic apple at that. Once it touches my skin it becomes fruit with spices, a real autumn scent to my nose. I don't know where the spices are coming from unless that's the Snake Oil peeking through the fruits. As it dries it becomes more of a spicy floral scent. It's really nice, and hard for me to describe without comparing it to other bpal scents. So, here goes. It's like the apple from Creepy meets the spices of Blood Moon, with the dark fruits of Xanthe the Weeping Clown (but without the candy/bubblegum feel that Xanthe starts out with). Not a lot of Snake Oil in here that I can smell. In fact this might be the Snake Pit with the least amount of Snake Oil (to me, that is!).

I'm glad I waited a few days before reviewing Death Adder. At first, I was just smelling a lot of vetiver. Now, it seems that more of the other notes come out when I wear it....and it's really good! It is still a strong vetiver scent, but there's also the coconut and vanilla that gives it a good dose of Snake Oil. I think opoponax is sweet myrrh, and that gives it a little touch of resins...not as much as Snake Charmer, but I think this is similar to that scent. But with the strong vetiver note this becomes its own scent, definitely. And I think that this will smell even better 6 months from now. It's one of my favorites out of the Snake Pit. Edit to add: A couple months later, I have to say that I really have to be in the mood for vetiver to wear this. The vetiver is very strong and lasts for hours on my skin. That one note out-lasts all the others by a long shot. I do still like it, but I haven't worn it a whole lot.

*sigh* Reading all of the other reviews of Temple Viper makes me sad. I wish I was getting all of the delicious sounding notes out of this that everyone else does! I already knew that champaca flower takes over most scents on my skin, and this is no different. On my skin Dr. John Seward, Two Monsters, and now Temple Viper all smell nearly the same. The champaca note is a sweet, fruity, clean smelling floral that reminds me slightly of bananas. In this scent, I can smell the frankincense and/or resins also, as a background note. After a while, I think some more of the notes are almost coming out, but it's hard to tell. I might be smelling the sugar cane slightly. I will let it age and try again, but really, if this is what it smells like, I don't need a bottle of this and Dr. John Seward. They smell so much alike I would only really need one or the other. edit: You know, after just a few days, the scent has settled down a little, and I really can smell the other notes! I'm getting more Snake Oil and resins this time. Will definitely let it do some aging and this might work after all. Actually I thought I was putting on King Cobra and I grabbed this instead. You'd think I would realize my mistake right away but it took me a few minutes to realize what I had done. So there are definitely more resins coming out in this scent now. And it smells wonderful! Edit: After about a year, this is way different. Now the frankincense is the star of the show, with a big shot of Snake Oil backing it up. The champaca and sugar cane are just supporting now. Which is just how I wanted it.

Lycaon?

See, I wouldn't have guessed that this would be one of my favorites from the Snake Pit...but it is! I'm not big on berry scents either, but this is really working for me. I'm a little familiar with acai berry from an outrageously expensive acai smoothie I get every once in a while at the health food store. It's rich, dark, brownish purple with a hint of chocolate in its flavor. This note stands out in Australian Copperhead. It's not a very strong scent on me (although my skin is pretty dry after testing and washing multiple scents last night) but it's delightful. Dark, spicy berry with some sweetness. I'm glad there's smoked vanilla, because I think that's giving this more 'Snake Oil' than other Snake Pit scents. I also love cardamom, and I'm not sure I can pick it out but I'm sure it's contributing to the spiciness. As for neroli, I'm not sure I have learned exactly what that smells like. Floral, I guess...which isn't coming out much in this blend, as far as I can tell. Maybe it's part of the sweetness that I'm smelling. This is a great scent, I really like it and I think it will age well too.

Cottonmouth has a strong, clean floral vibe that lasts and lasts. I am not a huge fan of florals but I can wear them every once in a while. It reminds me a little bit of Dirty, only stronger. Fortunately it doesn't have the linen note that my skin hates in Dirty (or if it's in here, it's behaving this time). However, it's not doing much for me. It's a fresh floral scent with just a little of the spices from Snake Oil. I will hold onto this because I would hate to break up the set....so I'll let it age a little, and try again, maybe that will help. I will say this has been going strong for a few hours now so it does have staying power. Edit to add: I tried this again, and I'm finding it much more likeable now. This seems to happen to me a lot. Something in the scent is more balanced now, maybe the linden blossom has settled down a bit. Looks like I'll be keeping it! Edit again...(maybe I should just wait a month before reviewing anything) The more I wear this, the more I like it. I don't know why. I can't explain it. It just smells good!

At first I couldn't work out what I was smelling here. Is this woody? Fruity? Sweet? Yes, all three. I could also detect something tart and lemony. Reminded me of Wolf Moon, a little bit. Reading Tramp's review helped me make more sense of it. I've never tried Holiday Moon, but I guess the fruity note here is bamboo. I have some bamboo incense that I don't like...this is much nicer. I think I recognize the teak from Boomslang. It's more like polished or finished wood, not fresh cut wood. As it dries it becomes sweeter and more tart at the same time. I think the black musk is coming out. Where's this lemon note coming from? Maybe the bamboo has a touch of a citrus feel to it. I want to keep sniffing my arm. There is a bit of Snake Oil in the throw, but up close it's more fruity and sweet. Not like Snake Charmer, though. This is different....maybe more of a wet scent? Not quite aquatic, though.....LOL.....Habu is hard to pin down!! I do like it. I think it will get even better with some age. I think lots of people are going to like this once they try it. It's somewhere between foody, aquatic, and woods, with aspects of all three of those. Edit: It took a while, but I'm glad I held onto this. It reminds me of Snake Oil strolling through a deep, dark, night-time forest of bamboo. Absolutely lovely, humid, and lush.

This is a beautiful, soft cocoa scent. Cocoa can be a problem note for me, sometimes my skin turns it quite dusty. That doesn't happen here, or at least not enough to ruin the scent. I can smell the Snake Oil and also rice milk. I drink rice milk a lot and wouldn't have thought it has much of a smell. It's there, though, and mixes wonderfully with the cocoa and Snake Oil spices. I think the rice milk gives the scent a little more sweetness. After a while, I think I can smell the teak but I'm not sure. If so, it's very subtle. This is an exotic scent. A little sweet but dry at the same time. I like it.

Sarada is right...my very first impression of Green Tree Viper is "Thin Mints!!", even though there's no chocolate. It's a cool green mint (cool blooded?), not icy like bpal's wintry blends. There is a little bit of spiciness that I think is the Indonesian spices from Snake Oil, just peeking out a bit. For quite a while, the green tea and bergamot were nowhere to be found on my skin. Eventually they do come out a little bit, but at no point does this have a strong citrus feel for me (I'm sure this will vary from skin to skin). It's all about the mint! Tramp is right, the mint does tone down after a few minutes, and it's like a spicy mint after that. This is something I'll wear again. Possibly a great scent for the summer heat, especially if you're not in the mood for something ICY like Cloister Graveyard In the Snow. Edit: I put this on today, almost 3 months later, and just a little aging has made a big difference! The bergamot is much more assertive. And the Snake Oil is much more noticeable. Basically the scent has gained a lot more depth and fullness, and some darkness too. It's really amazing.

King Cobra is a BIG scent....dark and dramatic, resinous. I can definitely smell a lot of frankincense and maybe the copal too.....I'm not sure I can tell them apart. There is a powdery aspect to this, as resins often do to me...this might keep me from wearing it more often, but I do want to have it on hand to wear when the mood strikes me. For the first few minutes, I could smell the spices and vanilla of Snake Oil. Now they're still there, but intermingling with the resins in a swirly dark dance. It's like different shades of color so dark that they're hard to tell apart....but slowly twisting in harmony.

Had a chance to spend some time with this today, so I'll go ahead and review it. Banded Sea Snake works really well on me! At first, I'm getting something surprisingly minty that I wasn't expecting. Could that be the sea moss? I'm not sure but after a few minutes, the scent goes through some changes. It strikes me as a murky green scent. I think of being about 10 feet under water, looking up at bright shafts of light falling through the green water. And there's the snake, swimming with graceful curves above my head. I don't get a whole lot of oakmoss, at least not the way I think of that note. After a while the olive leaf comes out more strongly, and it's a note that's growing on me. I recognize it from Lycaon and....was it in Haloa? I think so. Anyway, through all this, I didn't get a whole lot of Snake Oil either. It might be there, but the scent was working really well on its own, so I sort of forgot about the Snake Oil aspect. So basically.....this is a murky green aquatic scent with shafts of brightness, starts out minty, finishes with olive leaf. I wouldn't have thought that this would be a favorite. As it turns out, I really like it! edit to add: I do also get that touch of saltiness that Tramp mentioned in her review.

At first sniff, in the vial, this is rich and sugary, flavored a little with cocoa or chocolate. It's almost buttery in its richness, reminding me of the sweetness of Creepy or Sugar Skull '05 (if you haven't smelled those, well, just think rich melted or crystallized sugar), but without fruits. After less than a half hour, most of the richness and sweetness has faded, and now what I smell is a very familiar incense. I've smelled this before but I can't put my finger on exactly which flavor of incense it reminds me of...but it's very reminiscent. I want to say sandalwood but I don't think that's it. But sandalwood might be a part of it. Possibly a touch of some kind of berry? I'm not sure. Through all this, the Snake Oil is there, in the background. You can smell it in the vial, and through the different morphing stages, mostly if you sniff up close, but not so much in the throw. I have a feeling that with some aging, or maybe even after a few days (I just opened the package a few minutes ago), the Snake Oil might come out more strongly. So, do I like it? Yes, definitely! Very nice scent with chocolate and incense, and subtle spices of Snake Oil. Great stuff! edit: Oops, sorry Tramp! I was so excited about trying this one, I forgot you had already reviewed it...

This screams VETIVER on me. After a couple minutes, I can smell the pomegranate and smoked ginger. And it's definitely smoked ginger as opposed to regular ginger. Love it....all these dark blends keep finding their way to me lately. I'm all over it, and it lasts for hours on me. I fell asleep wearing this and I even dreamed about vetiver. Also it reminds me of a scene from a movie: In Naked Lunch, when William Lee and another writer's wife (Judy Davis) are using a typewriter that types in Arabic, and they're high on a fictional drug that's like soft black resin in a little jar. They are writing an erotic scene, and the typewriter turns into an erotic fleshy creature that jumps on them while they make out, and flops around like a horny flounder. For some reason, The Great He-Goat reminds me of that scene. Maybe I'm turned on in a sick perverted way by the dark family of scents, this one in particular. It smells kind of dirty to me!

I really like this scent, and I thought I had already reviewed it a long time ago. My review probably sounds like most others....I smell a lemony floral with some coconut, and it has a soft, smokey feel to it. It does smell somewhat like cookies or candy, but the smoke and flowers add more complexity....still, it's light and subtle on my skin. Very sultry and kind of incense-y. I can also smell the vanilla and black musk just a little bit. After about an hour, the lemon flower has faded considerably, leaving a musky, smokey floral scent. It's kind of faint on my skin now and that's my one and only complaint about this scent. But really, maybe that's appropriate for this particular scent, especially since I'm a guy. I love smelling like this, and I honestly want a whole bottle of it. It's not exactly masculine, but I think in some situations I could wear it and pull it off. Even if I don't wear it out in public, I could see myself getting a bottle just to wear it at home, because it's just too yummy to miss.

I forgot to mention, Centzon Totochtin (it's in the Excolo section) strikes me as very dark and almost velvety: "Bittersweet Mexican cocoa with rum, red wine, and a scent redolent of sacrificial blood". It was a surprise hit for me.

This is a very full scent, ripe and almost juicy. Oh! I thought it had currant, then I just read the notes again. I guess I'm smelling a lot of the plum and coconut, musk and spices very much like Snake Oil, and vanilla which is reminiscent of both Snake Oil and Eat Me. It's not buttery like Eat Me, though. Just very fruity and spicy. It's a lovely scent! I don't know that I would wear this often*, but I do want to have it around just for when the mood strikes. It's very potent and I feel like I could dump the whole imp into a bottle, dilute it 1:1 with jojoba oil, and it would still be strong. I might do some experimenting. Much later on, the resins become noticeable as the other notes fade. I do wish the resins were stronger from the beginning, but really it's such a nice scent I will happily accept is as it is. *edit...I've changed my mind...I thought at first this was just too rich and fruity for me to wear in public. Then I wore it to lunch yesterday, and just loved it....I'll be hunting down a whole 5ml at some point, I think.

Heavy and thick, Sloth is very strong and lasts a long time. At first the vetiver is mixing with the myrrh and smells almost metallic to me. But after a while the heavy, sweet myrrh comes out on top. It's the same myrrh that I smell in Penitence. Even later, after more drying, Sloth reminds me a lot of Laudanum, which also has myrrh. Myrrh is so weird. People call this masculine, and I guess I could see that. People say that myrrh is bitter. But to me, this myrrh is heavy, sweet, and almost powdery. Sloth isn't something I would wear often, but I might keep it around just for when I'm in the mood. I do like the extended Laudanum-esque drying part of it. Lasts and lasts.....

What I mostly get from Dracul is very spicy orange blossom. Strangely, I smell a strong hint of cayenne pepper, which I guess could be the clove and cumin playing tricks on my nose. The rest of the notes give little brief hints of themselves, for the most part...the mint, fir, black musk, and tobacco...it's all there. Something about the scent is a little stale or dusty on me, a problem that I'm finding with more and more scents. In this case I feel like it's the tobacco that's causing the problem. It's not horrible, just not a scent that's working well with my skin. It doesn't change or morph much at all, except the spiciness fades a little and the sweetness of the orange blossom gets stronger with time. edit: Hmm, later on..like more than an hour later...all the notes finally come together into something that I do really like. The scent hasn't changed, really, it just finally decided to cooperate with my skin. It's still spicy orange-y with musk. I like it enough now to hold onto maybe, and try again at least once or twice. edit again: This is yet another scent that I've grown to really enjoy. I will be getting a whole bottle at some point. : )

Aizen-Myoo starts out like the bitterest sharpest thing I've smelled out of the lab. Kuzu must smell like grapefruit because this smells exactly like when you peel a grapefruit and the mist droplets come out of the peel....just a little bit *greener* though. It's a lively smell, but I'm not sure where or when I would want to smell like this. Later on this sharpness fades, and a more candy-like sweetness comes forward. There is something a little stale about it now, and I think that's the tea turning on me. I don't think I have a problem with cherry blossom, and that combined with the mikan (someone said that's a kind of orange) might be contributing the candy sweetness. Without the staleness that it makes on my skin, this would be nice and fresh, but maybe too sweet for me. And even later, the staleness or dustiness, whatever it is, does fade and it's more like a candy smell now. Interesting scent, not what I was expecting. It makes me think of the face Homer Simpson makes when he tastes the sourest candy in the world, and the whole bottom half of his face puckers up. I wish I could find a pic of that, because it sums up the first bitter stage of Aizen-Myoo perfectly.

Second-ing Typhon, adding Count Dracula and RM Renfield if they weren't already mentioned. Someone compared Renfield to a screaming disembodied head in the reviews.

To me, All Souls is pretty much how it's described, cake and sugary with incense. It's a drier cake smell, not as buttery as, say, Eat Me, which smells very rich, buttery, and somehow a bit deeper to my nose. All Souls is pretty balanced between the foody aspect and the incense, although later the incense comes out stronger. It's a sweeter, more floral incense than other bpal incense blends that I've tried. Not much wood in this, that I can detect. As for the currant, I think it may have blended with the incense notes because it did remind me of a floral and fruity incense smell. Pretty straightforward, All Souls is a lighter scent than I was expecting. It smells good, but there are other incense scents that are darker and more exciting to me (especially Midnight on the Midway). I'm glad I got to try it and I can see that it would be very appealing to some. Edit: Well what do you know, 2 years later, I'm wearing this again on Halloween night, and wow....it has really grown on me. It's the same scent as far as I can tell, I just grew to love it more. I want more than my one little decant now!