BPAL: The Snake Pit

[telophase]

I went in on a decant circle run by loligo for BPAL's Carnaval Diabolique: The Snake Pit, which is a set of oils with their Snake Oil as a base.

These are my first impressions of them, plus the frimps that came with them, in the vial - I haven't tried any on yet.



Frimps:

Shroud Funereal Oils Dry white sandalwood wrapped in thin woods, soft grasses and the lightest white flowers layered over cajeput and the warm, deep scent of embalming herbs. - Sandalwood and soft grass.

Tavern of Hell Bewitching Brews White gardenia, ambergris bouquet, lavender fougere, orange blossom, melissa, tobacco flower, coriander, ebony wood, ylang ylang, absinthe and aged whiskey. - Neroli-like bitter overwhelming everything else.

Queen Gertrude Illyria Imperial violet softened by wisteria and chrysanthemum, but edged with the regal iciness of delphinium. - Floral but not overpowering. I can't recognize any specific flower, but the flower scents are not my forte. I might wear this if I felt flowery.

Rome Wanderlust Refined, austere and graceful. A recipe gleaned from Classical Rome: cypress, juniper, chamomile and rose. - Cypress with a faint gleam of fresh-cut green rose.


The Snake Pit

Asp Viper Carnaval Diabolique - Faiza's Companions: The Snake Pit Snake Oil with red mandarin, myrrh, and almond. - The almond is overpowering, but I can start to smell the mandarin underneath.

Australian Copperhead Carnaval Diabolique - Faiza's Companions: The Snake Pit Snake Oil with acai berry, amber, cardamom, neroli, and smoked vanilla. - Mostly a sort of berry.

Banded Sea Snake Carnaval Diabolique - Faiza's Companions: The Snake Pit Snake Oil with oakmoss, sea moss, and olive leaf. - I think I'm mostly smelling the Snake Oil.

Boomslang Carnaval Diabolique - Faiza's Companions: The Snake Pit Snake Oil with cocoa, teakwood, and rice milk. - A rich, thick chocolate.

Coral Snake Carnaval Diabolique - Faiza's Companions: The Snake Pit Snake Oil with blood orange, red apple, lemon peel, plumeria, and gardenia. - Warm orange and apple with a leetle somethig underneath, which is probably the spiciness of the Snake Oil peeking out.

Cottonmouth Carnaval Diabolique - Faiza's Companions: The Snake Pit Snake Oil with linden blossom, calla lily, passion flower, and narcissus. - I'd charcterize this as more fruity than floral - almost a light berry.

Death Adder Carnaval Diabolique - Faiza's Companions: The Snake Pit Snake Oil with vetiver, black coconut, vanilla, and opoponax. - Almost entirely vetiver.

Green Tree Viper Carnaval Diabolique - Faiza's Companions: The Snake Pit Snake Oil with four mints, bergamot, and green tea. - Wrigley's Doublemint Chewing Gum. Man, it's making me crave that.

Habu Carnaval Diabolique - Faiza's Companions: The Snake Pit Snake Oil with ho wood, teak, black musk, and bamboo. - Um. Sort of a woody, soft Lemon Pledge?

King Cobra Carnaval Diabolique - Faiza's Companions: The Snake Pit Snake Oil with orris, frankincense, and copal. - Interesting. Incensy with the orris winding about it.

Saw-Scaled Viper Carnaval Diabolique - Faiza's Companions: The Snake Pit Snake Oil with cinnamon, cassia, and red ginger. - I know what cinnamon smells like and what ginger smells like, so this overwhelming scent must be the cassia. And apparently I'm not fond of cassia.

Temple Viper Carnaval Diabolique - Faiza's Companions: The Snake Pit Snake Oil with sugar cane, frankincense, champaca, opoponax, labdanum, and hyssop. - Light incense and something good under it. I didn't like this at first sniff, but repeated sniffs, to try to ID the scents, started smelling pretty good.

Western Diamondback Carnaval Diabolique - Faiza's Companions: The Snake Pit Snake Oil with leather, tonka bean, red sandalwood, and sage. - Snake Oil with a light woodsy thing underneath - must be the sandalwood.


I think my favorites in the bottle are Coral Snake and King Cobra. This worked out well, because we each got a few bottles with a couple of imps' worth of oil in them in addition to the decants, and I got Coral Snake as one of mine. :)

There are four that I kinda like, but don't love, in the bottle/vial: Australian Copperhead, which is a berry with something else (the cardamon?) peeking out every so often; Boomslang, which is a wonderful chocolate but the Lab's chocolate note often turns to plastic on me; Cottonmouth with its light frutiness, and Temple Viper, which keeps swinging back and forht between "good!" and "meh."

Comments

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, Snake Oil. Let me know if you decide some of these don't work on you, I'd love to try some. Snake Oil is one of my current favorite BPALs.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Sure! :D I just have to remember to try them soon. XD

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Australian Copperhead and Cottonmouth sound really cool!

(look at that -- you say "berry" and I come a'running)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Heee. :D They're soft berries, not full-blooded ones, mind you. XD

I like these more than I expected to. The only one with a strong AGH NO reaction was the Saw-Scaled Viper, because of the cassia, I think. Which is sad, because I like cinnamon and ginger.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Cassia's a really ICK note on me too. I don't like it much either.

[blissfish.livejournal.com]

Cassia has a disturbing tendency to smell like toilet-bowl cleaner on me. :(

[mayatawi.livejournal.com]

If you're planning on getting rid of any, I'd be interested in Asp Viper or Boomslang. (Say "almond-scented" and I come running.) I don't have anything to swap-- unless you're into Demeter scents-- but, um, I could pay you? Maybe?

(Or I could just go buy my own. But that's so much work!)

[mayatawi.livejournal.com]

...and that was a totally unintentional mimic of magicnoire. What can I say, I'm impressionable.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I've got the Boomslang on now and it's very strange - the cocoa isn't going to plastic like most of the Lab's chocolate scents do - since Velvet works on me, I think I can say that their cocoa scent works and their chocolate scent doesn't - but as it ages, the wood is coming out. It starts as wood-scented chocolate, and ends as chocolate-scented wood.

I don't think I'm going to like it well enugh to buy a bottle, but I have to decide if I'm going to like it enough to keep the imp. XD But as far as the Asp Viper goes, I have both an imp and a bottle with approximately 2 imps in it, and I know I'm not going to like it enough to keep all that, much less buy a new bottle. So I suspect there is Asp Viper in your future, and I hope I can stop saying "Ass Viper" instead of "Asp." It's not easy to say quickly. XD

(I got them at approximately $3.50/each, which included the shipping, so I'll put that price on 'em, just fyi. I don't expect you to make a decision until I make a decision. XD)

I think I want Boomslang to work more than it is, just because I like the name.

[mayatawi.livejournal.com]

I am the viper! I am here to vash and vipe your... ass?

Sounds awesome. Just let me know which you're willing to part with.

I love the dark, woodsy cocoa-y scents. There's a chocolate shop nearby that sells these absolutely gorgeous chocolate-based perfumes, and I REALLY WANT ONE-- except they're, like, a hundred bucks for a teeny bottle. Woe. :(

[heyoka.livejournal.com]

I meant to tell you, I got the imp of Bakeneko. Thank you!! (also for the wee!bottles, which are so cute. I already put the oil in one of them and am wearing it on both wrists today.) Is rather nice, although I haven't broken down the scent as it is on my skin yet.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Cool! XD

I bought about 20 of the wee!bottles a few months ago when someone was putting in a big order (you can only get them by the case, it seems), and found that I hardly ever use them, so I've started sending the extras out by ones and twos to people. :)

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

Speaking of BPAL, I got my package today. Thank you! And thank you for the eentsy sampler bottle thingies. They're almost too cute to use.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! XD The bottles are cute, aren't they? :)

[blissfish.livejournal.com]

Those teensy bottles are adorable! Where did you find those?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Someone on the LJ community made an order a few months ago. Apparently you can only get them in cases of 400, and only at wholesale. I went in on it and got 20 (and 1 or 2 broke when I tested them - so be careful when pushing the white rollerball part on :). And then found that I'm really not using that many, so Is tarted occasionally putting 1 or 2 in as freebies on orders. :) They really don't cost much for each bottle when you have to buy 400 at a time. XD