PSL: Pumpkin Snake Latte

[Seajewel]

Basically what I smell like every autumn.

[HerbGirl]

Very nice. Smooth pumpkin spice latte drying down to Snake Oil. Yes, it's the new Snake Oil but I quite like it. It is very light and I am hoping it will get stronger with age. As it is, right now, it is lovely.

 

ETA: The Snake Oil is much more like the old Snake Oil than some newer blends, in my opinion. 

 

ETA2: This is becoming a favorite. It is my favorite of all of the Snake Oil variants, new or old (to include Chaos Theory V) and I find myself reaching for it quite often, even just to sniff the bottle. 

Edited May 6, 2022 by HerbGirl

[Numanoid]

HAD to get this scent. I love my Snake Oil and I do have a bottle of Pumpkin Latte that I also love, so heck yeah!

Sniffing in the bottle, I can smell both the S.O. and the pumpkin latte! YUM!

On my skin, I get an even balance of both scents, oh this is very good! Nice throw for me as well. This is right from the mailbox and it is so good. As we know, this will get better with age as well! Very autumn and cozy!!! 

[starbrow]

Back in the Good Years, Lunacies were not just monthly releases but also monthly gatherings of BPAL distributors on the east and west coast of the US. I have wonderful memories, including scent memories, of those early meetups where you applies a million scents to your arms all at once, and no matter how carefully you try to organize your testing methods, it all just ends up smelling like a big BPAL explosion of lovely musky gothy resins/tobacco/vanilla/spices. Add to that the fact that I usually went during Weenie/Yule/Luper time to maximize my exposure to the new releases, and you would always have to add lots of pumpkin, gingerbread, coffee, gourmands, and sexy musks to that mix.

 

I say all that to say this: Pumpkin Snake Latte has HUUUUUGE Lunacy scent memory for me. It smells like all the good things I remember about Lunacy rolled into one. The pumpkins, the spices, the musks, the vanillas, the resins, the covert snatches of Snake Oil in many different blends. It reminds me of sniffing my arm on the long drive home from the Atlanta Lunacy and sighing happily at how lovely all my random little dabs blended together. It brings back classic, essential BPAL vibes. It is near to the heart and soul of my love for this house, with all the powerful emotions that good scent memory brings with it, where you can hardly describe it except that it thrills you to your toes and you keep huffing for more of that tiny dopamine release.

 

Let's talk nitty gritty. I think the pumpkin is quite balanced here. It's not "Pumpkin Spice" where the cinnamon overwhelms everything. There's just enough twist of pumpkin to make it a fall-ish blend. The coffee element is very balanced too. It leans towards the resinous side rather than the sweet or overtly caffeinated coffee bean. I've been wearing Pumpkin Latte 2010 quite a few days now, and that one is so sweet and thick and rich that PSL stands out in stark contrast to it. Pumpkin Latte is where to go for your syrupy designer coffee. Pumpkin Snake Latte is a gothy BPALista who has, yes, been sipping at a PSL once or twice this season but still is very much in the land of Snake Oil.

 

Let's talk Snake Oil. It's young, yes, but it's quite present here. I can't wait to see how it develops. I can only imagine how it will be in a few years. The sugared vanilla is already delicious, the spices accounted for, the saffron teasing at the senses, the musks sensual and murky. The whole blend is hugely nostalgic already, how can it get BETTER? We'll just have to wait and see. I think this version is markedly different from Pumpkin Spice Snake Oil, which is dark and full-bodied and quite spicy, as well as from Pumpkin Latte, which is so thick and sweet it could stand up on its own if poured out. PSL is just its own thang. Balanced, beautiful, BPALtastic.

 

I will probably be acquiring a second bottle, it's just that good.

[feyofthefellwood]

This is probably redundant to say about a Snake Oil blend, but this is really gorgeous. It's coffee Snake Oil with a sultry hint of pumpkin spice. A sugared vanilla incense PSL. It all blends together beautifully into the perfect autumn witch scent, cozy yet alluring.

[frizzlechicken]

Gorgeous! It’s all the familiar snake goodness with coffee and (to my nose) Tootsie Roll chocolate.

[MonBon]

PSL: Pumpkin Snake Latte was my first (fresh from the lab) BPAL bottle I ever purchased. I was expecting it to smell heavily spiced with ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, etc... However, to my nose it reads more earthy/vegetal as opposed to spicy. It's definitely something I thoroughly enjoy smelling on my arm, it's sort of calming. It's very far from an artificial smelling "pumpkin pie spice" candle or flavor pumps at the cafe. It's more reminiscent of carving pumpkins than baking pumpkin pie. Earthy! The coffee element is present, yet not overpowering like espresso... its like a smoooooooth iced coffee. Overall a snuggly scent, not alarming, sharp or intrusive. Not a gourmand by any means, not a spice bomb either (I do enjoy the spice life). I've never really smelled anything like this before, I love tracking how it unfolds on my skin. I dig it! I'm looking forward to aging it and see how it develops. It lasts around 5-6 hrs on my skin, with medium throw. 🐍 

 

Edited November 20, 2021 by MonBon

[Poenari]

This blend is exactly what I had hoped for! The familiar Snake Oil is actually more prominent than in some of the other newer Snake Oil variants. Here, it is very recognizable as Snake Oil. I find it amazing that Beth has been able to create that beautiful Snake Oil scent in variants without using actual Snake Oil. Just more of her magic!

 

The pumpkin spice here isn't overly strong. And the coffee in this latte is sweet and mild. This is the first BPAL coffee blend that doesn't turn to bitter burned coffee on my skin.

 

Good throw and wear time, too!

 

What a lovely warm scent. I will need a backup bottle of this one!

[Lily luna lou]

This is definitely my fave pumpkin scent. It’s not strong both notes are subtle but definitely there. On the skin it warms up a bit and it really starts to make you feel like you’ve just walked into a barista caffe in autumn smelling like pumpkin latte goodness. Highly recommend this one for sureeee!!!

[Casablanca]

Coffee Snek. Mostly the Snek. No pumpkin, and only wee hints of pumpkin spice.

 

I like Coffee Snek, but I'm definitely not getting what some other reviewers are.

 

[Threemoons]

OK, I have a habit that when something is listed as "Snake" or "Frostbitten" I always make sure that I have the original scent also to compare.  So, now, I MUST order Rite of Passage from the Liliths now that I have this.  In the bottle:  Sweet vanilla syrup and a bit of powdery sweetness as well.  On, wet:  That notorious Pumpkin Spice blend picks up, with a faint coffee note in the background.  Coffee note quickly opens up more and brings some more balance to things.  Getting tiny hits of Snake Oil in the background as well.  Also getting a wee whiff of a kind of clovey musk--maybe the snake oil playing with the PS notes?  Drydown:  This winds up settling down very close to the skin and on me, oddly enough, it's a "cool" rather than a "warm" scent.  Getting sort of a creamy vanilla skin musk with a faint pumpkin spice thing and a hint of vanilla sugar going on after a few hours of wear. Any coffee notes have melted into the Snake Oily bit and are almost more of a coffee toffee, but again, only very faint.  This is one case where the components are all really tightly locked together and no one note really pops out in the end result.  Can't wait to compare it to standalone Rite Of Passage, which is in my cart and ready to go!

 

 

[Sjofn]

As advertised in the name and so damn good. 💯

Edited December 9, 2021 by Sjofn

[theredkilt]

I had a very peculiar experience with PSL. In the begging i get the roasted coffee bean and then it all melds in together with the other notes. I can discern the resinous base of Snake Oil, BUT after 1 hour what i can smell on my skin is Crowley, a slightly toned down version of it, but still it is good old Crowley. I've tested PSL several times and i always end up getting the Crowley dry down. Bummer.

[zankoku_zen]

Musky Snake Oil with extra spices. If you wanted a spicier version of Snake Oil, look no further. Medium throw, great wear length.

 

[Lucchesa]

OK, this is bizarre.  PSL hits me as a blast of red musk.  Are my decants mislabeled?  No, my Pumpkinville is definitely not a snake.  In no other snake oil blend I have tried has red musk come out swinging like this.  I get a little coffee, a hint of spice, and RED MUSK.  After about an hour I can start to suss out the general contours of snake oil though with hardly any vanilla or sweetness.  Weird.  I wonder if this is the Crowley experience @theredkilt is describing.  

[cosurmyyne]

It's worth noting that I've never been able to try snake oil, I've only ever had it in blends. this really isn't what I was expecting at all. On my skin wet, it's coffee. not sharp black coffee like jiaolong, like a medium roast coffee, somewhat rich and light. But it's just coffee, nothing else.  

 

after about forty minutes or so it starts to turn into a slightly spicy powdery vanilla, which i'm guessing is the snake oil. however there's something there that just puts me off, it's like a vaguely floral/sourness somewhere in the dry-down. 

 

It disappears within an hour and a half, and has a low-medium throw. I was hoping for more, but it's just ok. glad I only have an imp

[fairybites]

Very dark and strong coffee with barely any spice. It's there, but it just smells like Snake Oils spices and not pumpkin spice. I can't smell the SO vanilla, but I think with more aging it'll show up more and sweeten up the coffee note. 

 

It's a lot darker than I expected, I thought this would be more Snake Oil than coffee but it's still really good! 

[maleficentsea]

This one has really transformed for the better with three months of aging! Initially, all I got from PSL was bitter, burnt coffee beans. I forgot about it for the past few months, but came back to it this morning and, oh my, has it blossomed! It's now a lovely, rich, creamy, gourmand-y coffee and pastry scent to me! I will probably be getting a back up bottle to wear it all next fall.

[Just Kitten]

At first for some reason the coffee smells like cocoa to me (which is good because I love Boomslang) but then that goes away and it turns into this smoother creamier Snake Oil. Love!! Considering a backup bottle. 

[Little Bird]

Sniffing this in the bottle, my brain immediately thought that I was smelling Boomslang with its ultra smooooth, creamy, dark, slinky vanilla, but with roasted coffee bean (warm, gourmand, toasty) instead of cocoa.  I expected this to be intense on the pumpkin spice, but I actually don't smell the pumpkin spice at all.  I love the first half hour of wear (Snake Oil vanilla and roasted coffee beans) and was thinking backup bottles, but unfortunately something in PSL starts to go baby powdery on my skin after that first half hour.  It's like the smooth sweetness fades away to be replaced by powder and then the whole thing starts to fade rather rapidly.

[doomsday_disco]

On me, this is mostly a light Snake Oil with its musk and spices and perhaps the ghost of coffee.  I can smell the pumpkin spiced coffee in the bottle, more bitter coffee than sweet, but the pumpkin spice latte note is very subdued on my skin. There's a light sweetness after several hours of wear, but I think that's due to some whipped cream, because I'm not getting Snake Oil's vanilla.

 

I think this is nice, but I'm hoping that the coffee will be more noticeable on me with some age!

[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. 

[Viiinylflowers]

Snake oil + a dark sort of gritty and smooth at the same time coffee note.  
 

The musky /etc vanilla that usually glows in the snake oil has kind of a slightly tamped down earthy pumpkin twinge to it, but I’d probably not guess pumpkin if I didn’t know the notes.  
 

I like this because it’s like everything you already love about snake oil, but the darker parts are amplified.  
 

ive had my sample since soon after these first came out, and it’s stayed pretty much in this category ~ dark snake oil amplified by black coffee that plays well with the patchouli and other complexities/slightly gritty but smooth at the same time/slight earthy thing happening with the vanilla that glows in a different sort of muted earthy way.  
 

the colors I imagine from this are— like a dark amber-orange glow held to the light, with like dark instant coffee being dropped in, and you can see it start to liquify in dark strands reaching up.  

[Tamarinda]

I've yet to try actual Snake Oil but I have a bottle incoming so I'll update later.

 

This is sexy resins and spices with a hint of dark roast coffee. I cannot sufficiently describe what I am smelling, but I have two bottles and I'm not really one for backing things up. This has medium throw and lasts all day.

[MamaMoth]

85% snake oil, 15% dark roasted coffee beans, like that smell that hits you when you first walk into a coffee house. no punkin to be found, which i'm pretty ok with.  is it spicier than snake oil, or are snake oil's spices just resonating differently because of the coffee addition?  undecided.  in any case, it's certainly not a pumpkin spice bomb, which was what made me hesitant to try it.  since it's a latte, i was hoping for a creamy aspect, but there's nothing like that.  but it's pretty great.  it's a darker snake oil, but not heavy or gloomy.  something about the coffee actually gives it some lift, maybe akin to huffing coffee beans to reset your sniffer. 

 

as it really settles in, i wouldn't even say it's discernible as coffee anymore.  maybe just a lightly roasted snake oil.  not a huge variation from snake oil, but a good'un. 

Edited June 9, 2022 by MamaMoth