ND¢

Adding this review before this scent goes down: if you feel the Snake Oil variants during the Great Snake Oil Scare Ongoing have not been hitting the mark, I recommend you get a bottle of this at the minimum. It's by far the closest to Snake Oil As We Know It, with the guttery dark-pumpkin and coffee smell others have mentioned (which amps the Snake Oilness of the blend.) I would have sworn that this was made with Snake Oil™ and after getting this upon its release and sitting with it, I've decided to get some more. 

This blend is not overhyped. The hype is absolutely deserved. I blind-double-bottled this and I am absolutely coming back for another serving to give as courting gifts to my hypothetical future soulmate. So smooth that no one note stands over the others. Got a faintly Old West vibe, like Al Swearingen would be sporting it during an episode of Deadwood. This perfume is a SOUND. I love it.

This is a cool, sweet scent. I feel like the blossom is a touch indolic? or maybe the lotus root has a bit of a bite? Not smelling any tea rose from this, but it's fresh from the mail. The almond blossom and lotus root are the most notable for me, from the get go. I can tell the amber will come into play. 

ETA: There's the tea rose, a little, on the drydown. And the vanilla lending some depth... yes... yes... so elegant. so gorgeous. 

The high note ('frozen' or fuzziness of the labdanum?) is a little sharp for me, but this is still a pretty, unique scent. 

Got an unknown # bottle... I'd say this is resinous and sweet, with some labdanum and a gentle almost dried flower note. It's a soft, gentle, fuzzy and sweet skin scent, like Antique Lace if it was utterly without vanilla. 

Honey with a strong, high top note that's aggressive and unusual but not unpleasant. 

Perfect authentic sweet, fresh strong coffee. 

Corn chips? Dog feet? Skin chemistry can be brutal. 

Had to search high and low before I was able to get a partial of this. What a dolt I am for not having snapped it up when it was live. You know what this reminds me of? Part of the gorgeous appeal of Snake Charmer. Nowhere near as complex and doesn't contain many of the needed elements but it's a whiff in common and I love it. 

Something sent me off to The Land Of One Million Sneezes (guessing it's a combination of factors, but not something present in Blood Moon 2005, which does not trouble me) but I was able to note this is a very brash, bitter patch/spice scent. Menacing, almost. And then, the sneezes. 

This is the one Yule I blind-bottled after having realized that maybe sometimes I do like SOME vetiver. And boy, am I glad. I will say this is not my typical BPAL, I would not normally smell like smoky black tea but this to me is just a letter-perfect loose black tea, smoked and waiting at the bottom of a cup. So good. 

Little marshmallow, LOTTA TEA WHOO TEA tea tea hmm, that's pretty... lavender? Marsh... Hmmm, definitely a little musky in there. But a cute musk. Mmm. Sweet and cute and light. 

This one is a sleeper that came back and made me think I'd better get it before it comes down. Anyone who loves the deep, elegant drydown of Alkemia’s Silken Tent will probably love this-- there's a well-blended deepness, probably the ambery sandalwood, that is very reminiscent to me. I get the bergamot, lavender and possibly a faint rose at the beginning, before drydown, and hints of vanilla and marshmallow here and there, with the vanilla coming out a bit more as it wears on. 

My first first review! 

In bottle: the characteristic bergamot, but a little cuter, and tempered with the sweet bourbon tobacco bringing up the tail end of what I smell. 

On wet: the bergamot is BIG! But it's like.... a really fresh bergamot? If that makes sense? Not a flat tea ghost in the house! And there's a certain sophisticated cologne aspect to the scent, but that's fair because bergamot is a staple. We all know it. A WAYYYY more bergamot....ty scent than soft, pretty Severin, my bergamot benchmark, and even more than Paper Phoenix, but this is not the same bergamot as in either of those. The bourbon tobacco does a great job keeping the bergamot anchored and the blend is much more complex than some might give two notes credit for. (Edited to add: primarily bourbon tobacco in the drydown.) The blend is intriguing and I'm compelled to keep smelling it, especially once the bourbon tobacco gets some space. Y'all, buy it! 

Hard agree on the vanilla being reminiscent of Antique Lace. Hay Absolute note is a little more lemony right on top than I was hoping but this is literally right out of the mail. The overall scent combo is dynamite. Definitely a soft spoken cousin to Vision of the Courtesan to me. Maybe her wallflower cousin. Like. 

A dry, almost gritty cocoa opens only to be borne up by the smoothly blended other elements of this. The smoky vetiver, the toasted overtone... Yum. 

This is Womb Furie-adjacent. It's not just me, right? The honey with that particular spicy deepening reminds me of 2010 Womb Furie, anyway, and this is a lovely scent I'll be getting a couple of bottles of as the aged product will be incredible. It's great right now; warm and sweet and personal without trying to make a too-complicated statement about anything. 

Edited to add: two weeks of settling brings the merest hint of fresh wood being fed to the fire.... Mmmm. 

It's a light, sweet leather scent with threads of a lighter perfume wafting throughout. Very evocative somehow, although I'm not sure what it's evoking. 

There's an almost brashness to the drydown of this that overwhelms my skin's ability to carry it. It is a strong baked goods scent, reminds me a bit of my first experience of Shub but I'd say a bit more overtly sugary/bakey. 

Writing this review for anyone else who occasionally but not always has a bad reaction to some but not all of the Lab's cream note. Smells like pee on me. And there are plenty of other cream or milk BPALs that don't trigger this association for me. If this does not work for you, Young Pine Saplings will also not work for you. 

A couple of people mentioned the experience I had, which is that it turned into this nasty biological funk on my skin and even a soap and water washing didn't completely remove it. I got a similar if lesser problem with the also beloved Chibi Skull. Weird, brash, almost pee smell. So weird! 

In the haze of the Pinched mythos do not miss out on this, if for no other reason than that it's one of the best tobacco scents I've ever smelled. Subtle, deep, the pungent leaf blended with a wry pumpkin and touch of an edge in the cinnamon bark. Just a gorgeous, brazen tobacco scent. 

So the... thing about this is that I *love* the drydown after a couple of minutes but it goes on weird. This weird blast of... not even very distinct scents all shaping up into a... maple sugary... kind of spicy skin scent that's *so good.* 

Edited to add: initial weird blast resolving sooner into actual Snake Oil smell. Drydown still gorgeous, and best of all, throw's improving. So I'm going to buy more. 

Agree with the Womb Furie love. Mine is 2010 for what it's worth, smoothly blended but the Snake Oil spices and (almost) incense match so well with the (almost) honey dust/setting powder vibe so well that it's an experience all its own. I love wearing this one out. Lasts a good long time but is mostly honey powder and ghosts by the end. 

I think it's lavender that punches up first, but a very refined blend that isn't all over the place. The tea note, I think it is, is quite strong, and reminded me of my beloved Severin. Something about Paper Phoenix set off my deja vu super strongly. I like it.