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This is my surprise favourite from all the American Gods I've tried. I was so ambivalent about it I left it till last to test and I've fallen in love with it hard. It's all musk, all the time, but it has such depth. You can really smelly the dark metallic musk fighting with the golden ambery musk. It's really wonderful, rich and sophisticated. I don't have any musk single note scents (well not single notes, but where musk is the star of the show) and I think this is it for me. Definite bottle upgrade.

One day I will find the cedar perfume that loves me as much as I love it, but SBC is not the one unfortunately. This is just straight, damp pencil shavings on me and doesn't dry down to anything different. For those that cedar behaves on, I'm sure it's lovely.

I wish I'd got more than a sample of this, it ticks all my boxes. Heady, gorgeous orange blossom that smells just like my flowering mock orange at the moment; a hint of a deep, but non-dirty oudh; and a peek of a gentle, resinous amber that's ever so slightly powdery, and that almost earthy touch of bitter fragrance from the saffron. It really is a radiant, golden scent that feels sophisticated and mature. I'm in love.

Extremely low throw to the point that I can't smell it a minute after I've applied it. Can't speak to notes or impressions since I can't smell it at all. Update: today it is a little more forward and it is indeed lovely. A spiced vanilla with an almost baby powder feel to it. Very comforting and soft. Throw is still very low however. Putting this one away to age.

Wet: A really clean smelling, gentle aquatic. Parchment, aloe and fresh, gentle breezes. If it does veer a teeny bit close to laundry powder, it would be the classiest, fancy laundry powder you've ever smelled. Dry: Really did not expect such a musky dry down. The African musk and sandalwood is super prominent. This is such a delightfully clever scent which to me, mimics the cycles of the Nile. We have the aquatic opening (the flood) and the bone dry, musky finish (when the waters recede and the desert takes over). Absolutely fitting for Mr Ibis. Not only is it clever, but so wearable. It's fresh, soft, gentle and welcoming, with an undertone of secret ritual spices. Really lovely.

I was a little apprehensive about this one, but I really love it. To me it smells like a more mellow version of Embalming Fluid. The bergamot is reading as EF's citrus note, but it's tempered with the green iris stems that TeaOtter mentioned above and the gentle vanilla-ish benzoin note. It's really quite lovely. If Embalming Fluid is a scent for hot summer days in shorts, this one is more for a mild spring day in a tea-length dress with a glass of prosseco. I've been layering Mr Ibis and Silver Dollar and the green citrus and soft aquatic play together superbly.

I adore all the notes in this but I the tuberose is doing that urinal cake thing it sometimes does. This goes on very sharp and almost chemical smelling on me. The ghost of those other lovely notes are struggling to make themselves known, but the tuberose is slamming everything else into submission. BPAL's indolic white flowers do not ever seem to work for me, to my eternal disappointment. Not for me.

This is probably one of my favourite vanilla perfumes, probably because the vanilla isn't the star of the show. Wet, it's a lovely creamy vanilla with that gorgeous ambergris tang that gives a fragrance depth. As it dries the tobacco flower emerge and I amp them to high heaven. I love tobacco so not a problem for me. Sounds kind of obvious but the tobacco flower does have that rich, dry tobacco scent, but with a more gentle, sweet floral vibe. I got a few hours wear time out of this and while it lasted it did this thing where I would suddenly get blasted with vanilla or tobacco flower and then it would vanish. Every single appearance it made was divine though. I actually find it quite sophisticated without being mature. It's like a business executives who occasionally still sings into her hairbrush. Beautiful and grown up, but who still knows how to have fun.

I tested this without looking at the notes so let's see how off-base I am! Wet: it's an earthy lemon scent. I'm getting little bit of that pencil shaving cedar scent. Dry: the lemon is hanging in there with that woody base and a slight musky scent. It puts me in mind of an old cedar chest that's been regularly rubbed down with lemon oil (not lemon pledge!) and maybe a whiff of patchouli or some other earthy herb. It's a nice grounding scent, not really haunting at all! Edit: after looking at the notes, lol, never would have guessed this is just musk. I would swear that's lemon in this.

Wow. I applied a tiny bit of this in the crook of my arm and then put a hoodie on and forgot about it. 10 minutes later the waft of fresh honeycomb is coming out of my sleeve and I'm utterly beguiled. I'm not getting any other notes but an extremely realistic and beautiful waxy honey. I definitely get the animalic musk mentioned earlier which I think gives it that kind of sharp sweetness that real honey has. I generally dislike foodie or sweet scents but this is so lovely. I can see myself using this as a layering note quite a lot, and think it would be beautiful with very smokey fragrances like Smokey Mountain Mallow from Solstice Scents.

I made the mistake of testing Zorya P and Mama Ji at the same time. The ethereal beauty of Zorya P just could not withstand the spicy floral brick-to-the-face of Mama Ji. I love it. Up close, I am getting TONS of pink rose, which for me is great, because IMO the more rose the better. But at a distance, the spices are dominant. They're so dominant I'm almost getting that tickle in my nose I get when I go into an Indian spice shop. I don't know if it's the flowers or the spices but there's a kind of undertone of funk like the flowers are just on the edge of being past their best. It's that hint of death in life that I suppose is very suitable for a Kali perfume. I can't pick out any specific spices or flowers other than rose, this thing is so well blended. I'd say I'd douse myself in it, but I think people in the next street can probably smell the teeny drop I applied to test, so go easy. Definitely not one for the office. I kind of want to take up salsa dancing or something similarly as sexy so I have somewhere to wear this.

I was frimped this one and probably never would have looked at it otherwise, but I really enjoy it. The patch is that good, funky variety that brings to mind sexy hippies and headshops, but given some lovely, spicy depth with the addition of the amber and tobacco. It has a lovely, dry, slightly vintage vibe to it; I totally get the "old sweater" feeling, but it's less of a specific scent and more a sense of what an upper-class woman flirting with the idea of being a hippie might have smelled like in the 70's. Earthy, but chic. I'd spring for a full bottle, but unfortunately longevity is pretty short, maybe a couple of hours.

I think my decant might be off because this smelled so acrid and harsh to me. I almost physically recoiled when I took the top off the decant. I'm pretty sure it's not the perfume itself, but a chemical change that's occurred. I chanced it on my skin and it just got worse. It almost burned my nose to breath it in; it has an extreme chemical vibe to it, like an industrial strength insect repellent. Super disappointed because I love every single note listed and would love to be able to smell what others are getting from this. I would not take this as any reflection of Tombeur since there is no way so many people would be raving about it if they were smelling the same thing as me, I think I just unfortunately got an iffy decant. Won't stop me trying to get hold of another decant and giving it a go

I bought a bottle of this unsniffed since I'd heard so many great things. I've got a 4 year old bottle of Womb Furie so I assumed I would really like Snake Oil. In the bottle it smelled a little bit acrid so I thought I'd just stash it away for a bit to age. 2 minutes later I'm slathering a bit on just in case it does something different on skin and wow, is this ever a treasure! Wet: very heavy on the patch, heavy and spicy. Dry: a gorgeous vanilla comes out and blends perfectly with the spices. My skin has a tendency to turn sweet notes dark and smoky so YMMV with the quality of vanilla you get from this. On me, it's very slightly sweet, quite soft and lush, but not foodie. It's almost a blackened vanilla. My nose isn't sophisticated enough to pick out individual spices other than the patch, but I think there might be clove and maybe nutmeg? Whatever it is, it's really well blended and fantastic. I know aging is supposed to make Snake Oil better, but I don't think I'll bother. Given how dark my skin turns it already, I'm not sure it'd be worth it and I quite like that sharp herbaceous quality at the start. I love that aging it is an option though for those with different tastes. This is a best seller for a reason. Edit: You know what? I have totally changed my mind. After 3 months of aging, this stuff is THE BOMB. Way better than fresh and I really liked it fresh. It is just so smooth, yet packs a punch. I love a lot of different indie perfumes, but I think this is probably the first one I've wanted to buy a backup of.

It's so fascinating how chemically identical scents are perceived as different things by different people on the basis of expectation, scent memories and how our skin reacts to it. Maybe if you find BPAL's vanilla doesn't work for you, perhaps you could nail down the specific elements of vanilla you love and seek them out in other notes?