The Serpentine Story of Snake Oil, Or How I Came to Buy Snake Oil from Amazon.com
Buying snake oil in 2015 is surprisingly easy. A search for “snake oil” on Amazon yields 2,716 hits, many of them not liquid, but 16 oils sit under the “beauty” category alone. And that’s not counting all the non-medicinal variants, like the snake oil you can buy as a “gun lubricant.” (“Just a few drops of Genuine Snake-Oil-Prime and your bangstick will run like new,” reads the description.)
For research purposes, I chose a modestly priced option with a suitably mysterious label. This 1-ounce bottle of snake oil meant for the skin will set you back $8.75 and with expedited shipping, an order placed on a Friday afternoon lands the small container in your mailbox less than 48 hours later.
Labeled as a “skin emollient,” it smells a lot more fishy than you might imagine. On its Amazon page, the description is sparse, even though it’s in both English and Spanish:”This oil feels great on your skin. Use as a hydrating formula to soften your skin.” There are only four customer reviews, some of them clearly sarcastic (Yolo McSwaggins: “It has not only cleared up my acne, but it also cured my cancer and my doctor just told me that I am no longer HIV positive.”) What is it supposed to do exactly? And why is it so pungent?
