Loligo

This is the one and only true hit for me out of the entire Snake Pit. It has bumped Snake Charmer from my top three. True, it does smell like single note vetiver for the first few minutes, but soon all the notes even out to a cool and mysterious coconut - vetiver - vanilla mix. There's something spacious and airy about the scent, even though it's pretty intense. It reminds me of Samhain 2005, not in the notes per se, but in having this strange sense of... dimension to it. (It also smells just like Lush's Coolaulin conditioner -- not surprising, since that is scented with coconut, vetiver, and benzoin.)

I could wear this every day and not get tired of smelling it.

At first the mandarin and the strong, sweet almond jostle with each other, but then they blend -- unfortunately -- into something that smells sort of like baby wipes yet sort of masculine. WTF? Later on it all turns to a plasticky sweetness.

Considering that Snake Oil is great on me, and that the Snake Pit scents don't have any of my known deal-breakers (like jasmine), I am really not having great luck with these.

Wow, I could have sworn there was myrtle in this! Anyway, the notes all blend together to form something very dry, classic, elegant, and unisex... that smells a lot like myrtle.

First it smelled like 7-Up. Then it smelled like bathroom cleaner. Then it gave me a rash. I'd say it was the worst of the Snake Pit, except for that Habu gave me a rash even faster!

The first note I get is distinctly cocoa, not chocolate: it's like smelling directly from an open tin of cocoa powder, then some spices and incense notes waft into the picture. The overt cocoa smell is gone after about half an hour, leaving mostly Snake Oil with just hints of warm, dry cocoa and sweet, grain-like rice milk. Lovely.

Yup, there's a lot of consensus on what Anaconda smells like! To me, it has many of the same foody notes as Gluttony, but it's quite a bit smoother and drier, rather than heavy and sticky. It's like smelling Gluttony incense and drinking a Gluttony cocktail, while standing on a nice cozy Snake Oil rug.

Sticky, sour cough syrup -- I had to wash it off.

I tried this on my husband, so I don't have a very detailed review. (He wouldn't sit still to let me smell his arm every two minutes ) Overall it was an austere and elegant cologne, simple and clean-smelling from a distance, but much more complex when you get close and really sniff.

Like cheap potpourri -- a jumble of harsh, fake, cloying notes. I think it's the sherry screwing things up for me, because nothing with alcoholic notes has worked on me in ages.

The opening notes of this blend are amazing: a cool, smoky lemon. I'll have to keep an eye out for lemon flower; usually citrus oils go sour and heavy on me, but this one is ethereal and beautiful. Then the rest of the flowers show up -- I get a lot of heliotrope, which I love. But then the opium starts doing that Band-Aid smell that it often does on me, and the black musk goes skunky, and it's all over. Woe! And I never picked up even a hint of coconut.

This opens with the lavender fougere and the absinthe combining to make a sweet but masculine herbal with incredible throw. Then the gardenia and the whisky kick in, and it all goes to hell -- but not in a good way. The florals, herbs, and whisky refuse to play nicely together on me; it's an unsettled mess. I've been having this problem a lot recently with these blends that have a long string of notes, with the New 13 being the notable exception.

Bleargh. The powdery amber and the sweet pea combine to make this blend smell like baby care products, and not in a good way -- there's a slight plasticky note to it, reminiscent of disposable diapers. (Unused diapers, but still.) I get very little vanilla until later in drydown, and no sandalwood at all.

Wow! Like everyone says, this is a rich, creamy lily scent -- simple, gorgeous, and multi-purpose. There are very few GC scents that tempt me to buy bottles, and this is now one of them.

Evil Grape Kool-Ade, indeed. Over the first half hour or so, the scent layers itself like this: first grape Kool-Ade, then booze, then florals, then blood musk, and the layers just never mesh for me. They fight with each other, and the overall effect is nauseating. I haven't been having any luck lately with things containing liquor notes.

I love this. It opens with strong cocoa, vanilla, and rooibos. I don't care for rooibos as a beverage, but it makes a surprisingly nice scent. As the rooibos recedes, I can pick up a sweet/tart fruit scent -- once I read the note list again, I could tell it was star fruit. The florals are never strong on me (thank goodness); they just add a pleasantly perfumey quality to it. The chocolate only sticks around for an hour or so before turning into more of a cocoa butter scent -- still quite nice. A faintly spicy vanilla note sticks around the longest.

There's definitely dragon's blood in here -- the sticky cherry-lilac scent is strong on my skin. There's a pungent earthy note that sometimes smells like garden dirt and sometimes like a cut stem. There's something slightly alcoholic, which in combination with the dragon's blood cherry makes it smell a bit like cough syrup at times. Finally, I think there might be a hint of rose or rose geranium; there's definitely some floral note that's going to soap as it dries down. It's interesting, but I don't think it's a keeper.

ETA: later in drydown it reminds me quite a bit of Red Moon, but Red Moon was warmer, sunnier and more layered on me.

Wow, I could have sworn there was patchouli in here. That's what it smells like on me: a nutty, soapy patchouli. (It must be the florals that go soapy.)

So... this doesn't smell like celery on anyone else? Okay, just me, then. Loam, dust, and celery. A faint, sharp whiff of citrus zest, if I sniff just right.

Samhain '06:

I agree with the many people saying that Samhain '06 is lighter than '05. However, on me, "lighter" doesn't mean "fruitier". I actually get much more of a fir note from this year's than from last year's, but it's dry and airy. Last year's is cool and dense, and has a strange smoky/sweet note so strong that I can smell it in the air half an hour after merely opening the bottle.

On the fruit topic, though, I think that the apple in this year's is a much more natural, recognizable apple.

Samhain '05 is a mysterious, indescribable experience, whereas this year's has clearer, tamer notes to it, but it still has tons of seasonal charm.

Oh, I *love* this. This is what I was hoping Honey Moon would smell like. On me, the opening honey note is thin, floral and perfumey, not sticky and edible. It dries down to a lemony, powdery sweetness with faint hints of roses and Mediterranean herbs baking in the sun. And god knows I need more beauty and civilization in my life right now, so I am very happy to have received this frimp and will be wearing it frequently.

Rose and violet are both problematic on me, so put them together and wow, you get a particularly cheap and nasty bathroom deodorant spray! In the drydown, I can get hints of the warm, rich floral this is supposed to be, but I have to sort of smell around this weird, bitter, sour note that predominates.

The bergamot and grapefruit create a harsh citrus overload, on me. Plus orris has never been great on me, though I can't exactly describe the quality of its badness. Oh well.

Verbena is often way too sharp and strong on me, and ginger disappears, and that's exactly what happened here. Also the verbena doesn't sit comfortably with the amber, giving the whole thing that cheap men's cologne feel that someone else was talking about in their review. I really like the green grass note, though, and I hope it shows up in a blend that works better on me.

Oh hell, I wish I had a bottle of this. It works so differently on me than most other BPAL oils: the notes are so perfectly blended into a coherent whole that I can hardly pick any of them out, and the scent seems to live a few inches above my skin -- not an effusive throw, but not stuck to me either, just gently enfolding me. It's very soft, but somehow powerful. Subtle and sophisticated and just beautiful.

On me, the patchouli is overwhelming for the first hour, but at least it's a nice woodsy patchouli as opposed to a stinky-hippie patchouli. As the patchouli finally fades, the scent turns into a really well-balanced, sort of incense-y blend of lemon verbena and cedar -- definitely a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because I'm not terribly fond of either of those notes, but there's something very likeable about this blend.