Bal D'Afrique

Bought a small 0,5ml sample online cause it was cheap lol, they usually sell it so expensive so I took the risk. When smelled from the bottle, it smells really alcoholy, but on skin it's so wonderful! I hopped on here to check the notes cause I was kinda surprised it's so sweet and citrusy. I have Bibliotheque by Byredo, and it's too cedary and vetivery. This one has these notes too but they're almost nonexistent! I think they just add that "beachy" vibe to it, so it doesn't override the juiciness. When I smelled it for a few more times, it smelled so familiar, like those hard candies with liquid filling inside, but I couldn't remember what the brand name is. I went to search it up, and found out these candies are only made in our country and Slovakia 😭 (if anyone Czech is reading this, this smells like Bon Pari candy - literally on point!!)

Best blind buy ever, I was super skeptical at first, honestly only bought it bc I wanted to buy a byredo fragrance for my collection and it was on sale, I chose Bal D’Afrique bc I still wanted to somehow “play it safe” (buying the mose popular one from this brand), and I was left completely speechless when I tried this fragrance for the first time!! On me is super complex, sometimes the violet peaks through the most and it leads more feminine, sometimes the bergamot and cedar are the most prominent notes and then it leads more masculine so I chose to vote for unisex, longevity in around 6h, honestly perfect for me!! I don’t regret one cent spent on this perfume and I hope my byredo collection will get bigger in the near future☺️☺️☺️

I've been keen to try the offerings from Byredo for some time now, but the dilemma has been deciding which to sample first, as several look good on paper. I'd managed to narrow those I felt were a potential fit for me down to Alto Astral, Black Saffron, Mojave Ghost and Super Cedar. Bal d'Afrique didn't make that list, for no other reason than that I'd not read up on its notes and accords. It was by pure chance, then, that I stumbled upon it while buying a selection of other samples, which included L'Artisan Parfumeur's Timbuktu and Memo's African Leather. It was the "Africa" link in the name that persuaded me. That, of course, is not a good reason to purchase a sample, but now and then it's worth throwing caution to the wind.

This is a Summer fragrance if I ever smelled one. It opened with a burst of clean, fruity florals. I could swear it smelled like pineapple - very tropical. Unfortunately the fruit didn't stick around very much past an hour, but the scent did settle into a lightly sweet, floral, cozy smell. Something in it reminded me of sunscreen, in a good way. I suspect the cozy aspect came from the vetiver. It definitely reminded me of a day cruising on the ocean, under the sun. Clean smelling, and just sweet enough. I really enjoyed it in the hot weather. This fragrance lasted about 4 hours on my skin.

I don’t know what it is about this fragrance that has me in a complete chokehold. If I’m at home by myself, I will spray this. It’s my comfort scent. There’s something so beautiful and comforting about this that reminds me of something that I can’t place. It’s so beautiful. It is very light. It doesn’t have a lot of projection or longevity power, but honestly I don’t mind spraying it several times throughout the day. It’s so lovely. I love that it’s light and not overpowering on days when that’s what I want. This will definitely be a fragrance that I will always keep in my collection.