Habu

[SultryWolf]

Snake Oil with ho wood, teak, black musk, and bamboo.

in the decant: Fruity-woody, something like snapped branches.
on: I guess the bamboo is that green-fruitiness; the spicy vanilla of Snake Oil emerges, gently, on the drydown.

[pkwench]

I'm in ur reviews, lovin' on the Habu.

 

I wish I could be serious about this, but? Habu gives me such joy-joy feelings that I'm rendered positively silly. I can see the comparisons to Holiday Moon, but it's nowhere near as sugary. It's instead almost pulpy bamboo wrapped up in a sexy layer of musk, snake oil, and happy GOD KNOWS what. It's well nigh fruity upon application, then a bit of Snake Oil powder, then? Just lovely. I'm going to buy a bottle. Oh, yes. Yes, I am.

[slave1]

HABU

 

In Bottle: Sweet woods

 

On Skin: I didn’t expect to like this scent, it sounded far too woody for me. But low and behold it is delicious!! So sweet and deep! The bamboo is light and actually overpowered by the teak and musk. I usually associate bamboo with light fresh oriental scents. Not here at all, this scent is dark with the bamboo offering a slight dagger of light. The musk is sexy, loving it and combined with the Snake Oil it has the perfect amount of resins and spice. The ho wood and teak give it such polished depth, woody but not dry. As the scent develops, it brightens up a bit and has the more traditional Asian BPAL feel to it. The throw is very very light and I have to lean in and really inhale to give a proper review. I love this scent but it’s one I’d have to completely cover myself in to really smell it. I wish it had better throw and wearlength. Still, it is gorgeous. Very light throw and short wearlength.

[Belladonnastrap]

Sooooo.

 

Habu for me is sort of like Buck Moon, Holiday Moon and Snake Oil's bad parts rolled into one with a jolt of bamboo. And oddly enough it works!

 

It's snake oil only deeper and woody. Very very sensual, I'm surprised.

[savage_rose]

I smell Holiday Moon similarities in the bottle, but on it's another story. It smells like sweet, creamy aquatic greenery...a strange description, but that's how it smells to me. It's really nice and light, and very herbal to me. Very gender neutral. I really like this, although I must admit that it's in part because "ho wood" makes me giggle.

[sarada]

Habu is first on my list of the next Snake Pit scent I want a bottle of. I'm not about to perish from desire, but I do really like it.

 

At first sniff it reminds me of a favorite Ganesh incense when you sniff it from the box. I think it's the "herbs and flowers" one. How odd! When first applied, it's a super-powered Holiday Moon. I loved that bamboo note, but it just didn't last on me. The Snake Oil is the key, apparently! It really adds power to the bamboo and throws it crazily around the room.

 

Fruity-green wood is how someone described it upthread and I completely agree with that. Add a touch of a syrupy vanilla backdrop and just a touch of pale greenish white bark pulp and you've got it. I really want a bottle of this! Maybe in time for summer, the bamboo would be very refreshing.

[filigree_shadow]

The bamboo is amping tremendously on me -- Habu reminds me a lot of the Asian-themed lunacies from last year. Strangely, I swear I can smell the black musk in this in addition to the Snake Oil. I didn't think I'd be able to pick those two apart. I can imagine this scent being at home on a man. Maybe I should sneak up on my hubby and give him a swipe with the imp wand when he's not looking.

 

Also, this is a much softer scent than the other Snake Pit oils I've tried. I have to put my nose right next to my wrist to smell it.

 

If the bamboo would calm down a little bit, I'd like the scent more. With the Snake Oil, woods, and musk, I imagine this is going to smell tremendously good in about a year. Right now it's a little too fresh-smelling. I ought to buy a bottle and let it hibernate for a good long while.

[Mianjo]

Habu was all bubblegum, all the time on me.

 

In the vial: Bubblegum.

 

Wet, on skin: Spicy bubblegum!

 

Drying/Dry: I had to look in my package to see if I had somehow missed the Bazooka Joe comic that came with this decant. Nope, no comic...but still all kinds of bubblegum.

 

 

I like bubblegum...but not enough to want to smell like it. I wish I got the woods, etc. that other folks are getting.

[Naamah_Darling]

This has the feral sweetness of a really thick musk over Snake Oil, but the woody, greenish notes that accompany it make this such an odd scent that I can't really characterize it.

 

Wood and green bamboo notes are often paired with very clean or resinous scents, and while the wood blends well with the Snake Oil, the bamboo's juicy sweet scent is so clean and unusual in the blend that it's startling. It gives the whole a juicy, green sweetness. The musk is a rich, fluffy, dark musk.

 

This is a friendly scent, and for some reason it smells quite foody to me, like powdered hot chocolate with vanilla, or dry chai teabags. It's very pleasant and very unusual. It's resemblance to Snake Oil is pronounced, but it's quite a bit more mellow; it lacks that potent cherry/almond syrup smell.

[Keslynn]

In the imp, Habu has the fresh scent of cut woods.

 

On my skin, the fresh wood scent stays only a moment before turning straight into Lemon Pledge. Unfortunately, it never changes from the Lemon Pledge. Silly, silly chemistry, why couldn't you give me the fresh wood smell?

 

Verdict: Lemon Pledge.

[phedre]

In bottle: this smells like cocoa, with a woody touch.

 

On skin: warm, deep wood. This is so lovely.

 

drydown: snake oil's starting to peak out now. Warm woody snake oil with a hint of green. This is just lovely.

[supremegoddessofall]

In bottle: Slightly rancid snake oil. Not boding well...

 

On me: Citrus-y snake oil. Sort of furniture polish-like. It's mellowing out a bit more, but this one really isn't working well for me.

[PurringPulsar]

Habu

 

In the imp: bamboo pulp and something reminiscent of melon. Sweet and fresh.

Wet on skin: now I smell the rosewood-like ho wood, and a dry teak note, along with bamboo.

Dry: this is very pretty! The dominant note is bamboo, and it smells amazingly like the real thing…fresh and green and a little wet, this smells like a bamboo shoot. I also smell something a little herbal-lemony reminiscent of geranium or palmarosa, the ho wood which smells a little medicinal and bittersweet, and very similar to rosewood. The teak adds a grey wooden scent to it all, and the bamboo note is almost sweet. It reminds me of aspects of Holiday Moon and Hungry Ghost Moon, a very Asian snake. Not very Snake Oily though, but pleasantly fresh and wet.

After a while: the bamboo finally wins against the ho wood and teak and now is the star of the scent. Green and pulpy, this scent is incredibly cooling and refreshing, it’s like being in a forest of bamboo in the rain. I smell a hint of something darker and sweeter, probably the black musk, in the background, but for now it’s mainly bamboo.

Over time, though the cool bamboo still remains, a darker sweetness rises up from the depths. Not sure if it’s black musk or Snake Oil or both, but it smells really good, dark and rich and a little bit spicy, and contrasts dramatically with the green, dewy bamboo. The teak has returned once more as well, adding a soft woody scent. Eventually it becomes a cool woodsy bamboo-teak with a hint of vanilla sweetness, a slight trace of warm, deep musk and Snake Oil under a covering of green coolness. After a few hours, the scent throw is different to the scent close to the wrist-I smell more of the wood and bamboo close to the skin, but the throw far from the wrist is the vanilla of Snake Oil!

The end drydown of this scent is a cool vanilla scent, and oddly, I smell coconut. I know, it’s not listed but I smell fresh green coconut and coconut water with vanilla, as well as dry teak. Lovely! It’s like a lighter version of Death Adder, a chilled vanilla-coconut sweetness. I swear I even get some lovely amber after some time as well, don’t know where that comes from, but it’s beautiful. This scent is amazingly long lasting. I could still smell the vanilla and teak the next morning.

Verdict: I am pleasantly surprised by this scent. I wasn't expecting to love this snake as much as I do, but this is really good. It starts off like a cool, wet, green Asian scent, like the Chinese lunacy series. The bamboo and ho wood are strongest, giving this scent a lovely freshness which is sweet and pulpy and cooling, and there's something almost melon-like to it. the scent sweetens beautifully over time as the musk and the vanilla of SO start gradually making their way into the green freshness of the ho wood and bamboo, darkening it a little but also adding depth. This is another one of those 'summer Snakes', (although the vanilla-musk is heavier in here) and it becomes even more so once a coconut-like note appears at drydown, making a scent almost like green coconuts with bamboo and Snake Oil. The most surprising thing was how long the scent lasted on me-it smells light, but the green woodsy vanilla sticks around for ages! I do prefer Green Tree Viper as my favourite of the lighter Snakes, but this is a scent I didn't expect to enjoy so much. And yet again, my wallet cries as I fall for another Snake Pit scent.

Emoticon rating:

Is it a keeper? Yes, this scent is perfect for summer, and it’s really growing on me.

If you like this, try: Holiday Moon, Hungry Ghost Moon, Lantern Ghost of Oiwa, Snake Oil, Death Adder

[steffanina]

Habu-

 

In Bottle: Sharp and eye-opening, the insect-repellant smell I dislike in many men's colognes.

 

Wet: Much fruitier and juicier on! The insect repellant smell is not present at all.

 

Dry: Wow, what a difference from the bottle! This dries down to a floral-fruity-spicy version of Snake Oil, which I find I even prefer to the original Snake Oil. I didn't think I was going to like this one, but I do!

 

Overall: I like!

[n1k1ta]

I am so disappointed. Habu is just watered down Snake Oil on me. I didn't get any of the woods. Only the earthy, spicy vanilla of Snake Oil. Color me all sorts of sad.

[deleahrium]

I just smell woods. Fresh, green wood. I'm not picking up any musk or even Snake Oil. It definitely has that asian, light, fresh wood feel to it, as opposed to a heavier darker wood.

[surlygurl]

This is my absolute favorite of all the Snakes. In the bottle and fresh on my skin it smells "eh, whatever". As it starts to dry down, a fruity green wood comes to the front and it glows. Then there's the addition of Snake Oil (I guess - I've never tried it ) - like a white incense, if that makes sense.

 

And it lasts & lasts. I put some on when I got to work @ 8:30. I still catch whiffs of it 8 hours later! I may need a second bottle before the Carnivale leaves town....

[Jilara]

I never get bamboo.

 

Wet, there's a slightly musky woody note, with a Snake Oil background. Then it dries down and turns straight to Snake Oil. That's all, folks.

[labeth]

Habu was a free gift-- I got half an imp with a bottle of Tokyo Stomp I bought from someone on the forum. I hadn't actually taken a look at much from Carnaval Diabolique, so it was nice to try something I had no preconcieved notions of. I seem to have had a very different experience from a lot of the people in this topic.

 

In the bottle, it smelled like a wet incense sort of smell.

 

Applied, it was still incense, with a definite sandalwood-ish scent (I've never tried anything with Snake Oil before, so it may come from that) with an undercurrent of something light and fruity. Something in the throw reminded me of sweet roasted nuts. Not getting much in the way of green smells, but I really like this. It's a keeper, and I'll see if I like it enough for a bottle if I miss it after I run out.

[Tess]

I was going to do my usual review system with this scent, but that got derailed yesterday when my S.O. was going through my stash of the Snake Pit and decided that he loved, loved, LOVED Habu. I open the imp up, gave it a sniff and commented that I smelt something akin to apple in there (later found out to be bamboo), which tends to sour on my skin. He simply wouldn't take no for an answer.

 

I put some on.

 

The snake turned on me and bit me hard. That damn bamboo note did exactly what I knew it was going to do, becoming rotten and sour on my skin. The spice notes of the Snake Oil only encouraged it and the wood did nothing to dampen it down. My S.O. sniffed me, wrinkled his nose and said...

 

"Can you ask on your message board to send me someone with good skin chemistry?"

[LadyCrow]

Some people have mentioned a piney feeling in Habu. Y'all, I know where you're getting that -- it's in the lemony-rosewood thing of the ho wood, abetted by the bamboo -- but I assure you, there are not significant amounts of pine. I have been wearing this for several hours. In that time, I would have been running for the Benadryl, frantically scrubbing this off, and possibly having to use my asthma inhaler as well. There's a similar crisp cleanness to the wet stage, but I don't think pine.

 

Wet: Bamboo and bright ho wood. Very clean and light. Just hints of teak at this stage; something almost like melon.

 

Drying down: It takes some time for the bamboo to recede into the background, and for the woods -- the teak wasn't as strong as I'd hoped -- and the musk to come up, but when they do, they make a very sexy, subtle blend with the Snake Oil that finally appears. This lasts a long time for me and is very nice, conjuring places I haven't been yet -- not as aggressively sexy as other blends, but alluring in a way some of the recent Salons have been.

 

Verdict: I will always give it up for Habu, just like a ho wood.

[khiseer]

In the bottle this smells very bamboo like and lemony to me, but i can smell snake oil slinking around in the depths of the scent.

 

On my skin this scent goes very sharp and close to identical to freshly cut lemon grass, with the snake oil weaving its way in and out of it.

 

Not an everyday scent for me, but great when i want to sharpen something else up with just a tiny amount of this.

[jasmine]

Unsurprisingly, this is very woody, but I do not know the various woods apart from one another, and I cannot be certain which is dominant. One is green and higher in the nose; the others run beneath the Snake Oil core. There is something underneath everything that is like a cocoa note, and something above both that is lemony. In the middle of it all is the familiar, difficult-to-describe scent of Snake Oil itself.

 

The lemony note grows as Habu wears on me. It reminds me a bit of Cairo, actually; like Cairo, it is lemony without beng brilliant yellow. This is lemon and wood sorted out in layers with the finest powdering of cocoa underneath. It strikes me as a good autumn scent, something to wear when the leaves are turning colors and starting to fall, but it doesn’t fit well with the spring.

 

After half an hour or so, the scent fades a bit, and the throw is pretty much Snake Oil. The lemon and cocoa back out entirely. (I know that neither is listed in the Lab’s scent notes, but I can’t figure out which notes these really are, so everyone else will have to suffer through my indistinctness.) I can pick up the woodiness still, but only close in. This seems to be typical of the Snake Oil blends; however, since the overwhelming characteristic of Snake Oil is its reliable durability.

 

Later: the lemon and cocoa manifest in the throw, but they are still invisible to my nose close up. How very odd.

 

In the end... all I can think of this as is "another Snake Oil scent". It’s good, but indistinct.

[500ml]

Initially I rather liked this. Although it was slightly cloying in the vial, on my skin I got a fresher scent, slightly floral (for some reason) and slightly vanilla with a bit of spices. Very layered and therefore quite pleasant for me. Once dry Snake Oil alone pops up. Sad, I really thought this was a winner :/

[aine]

Hmmm, I came to this thread with grand plans for my Habu review. But apparently I'm the only one who thinks it smells like rockmelon.

 

Litta bitta snake oil. Whole lotta rockmelon.

 

*slithers away in embarrassment*