Bal D'Afrique Eau de Parfum By Byredo

EN. I love the most of Byredo perfumes, but this one is really THE BEST! When you're wearing it, it feels like you're wrapped with love, it some kind of happiness, that remains with you for whole day.

IT. Adoro la maggior parte dei profumi Byredo, ma questo è davvero il migliore di tutti! Quando lo indossi, ti senti avvolto di amore. È una sorta di felicità, che rimane con te per tutta la giornata.

If I could live in this 24/7, with all the layers I would. It is sumptuous, mysterious and so amazing. I feel like smiling when I wear it and will put it on before bed simply to feel good as I sleep. Simply Gorgeous.

Wow! This is really something - a high quality, unique fragrance. Feminine, sexy, and hard to describe because it's so unusual.

I can detect some of the same fruity notes as in Byredo's 'Pulp', but deployed far more conservatively here to lend a fruity ring rather than fruit overload (as I find with Pulp).

It holds quite well, giving several hours of fragrance, then eventually dries down to reveal a pleasant vanilla that had been lurking in the background all along.

This is one that's definitely on my birthday list!

EDIT 3 weeks later:

Oh my, how my taste has evolved in a short time. I still find Bal d'Afrique striking, unique and pleasant, but also now it's obvious that it's unisex. I can detect a certain animalic undertone, perhaps musk, that is extremely common in high end perfumes but that I have come to dislike on my skin.

I can definitely imagine this suiting some men. It's a very worthy candidate for a guy who's looking for a statement fragrance that's different from the common 'clouds of aftershave' frags out there. It's sexy in a different, more personal way.

LOVE LOVE LOVE... This is the first perfume EVER (in the 40 years of my life and the probably 25 years I'm using perfumes), which I bought on the same day of smelling it for the first time... the first time ever that a recommendation of a shop assistant was spot on.... and the first time, a perfume became my signature scent straight away. I smelled it and it was just... me.

I was on a lunch break hunt for new scents and had a chat in the shop about my current favorites (normally fresh white flowers with a green touch, since recently also more woody and deeper/more masculine scents, but never too powdery, makes me cough)...
The assistant showed me Bal d'Afrique... I smelled it for the first time... and went "Mmmmmh!" immediately... not like oftentimes, when you politely answer "Yes, nice..." or "Mhm, not bad..." to those awful scents some of the shop assistants are recommending, with the words "I like it very much myself!" or "This is very popular!".

No, Bal d'Afrique has a wonderfully fresh citrus/orange/bergamot blast in the beginning, interlaced with a delicious fruit (must be the blackcurrant), never getting sickly sweet, never acidly citric (you know... like the times when you have to sneeze from all the citrus)... just a wonderful balance between all components... while a faint smokey touch is hovering at the scent's edges.

This initial richness of juicy fruits lasts about 20 minutes on my skin and then fades a little, becoming warmer with amber, musk and cedar. The smokey touch also gets a little stronger, but never becomes disgusting (non-smoker writing here).

The only "drop of bitterness" in this luscious composition is... longevity is only moderate... after 2-3 hours I barely can smell it anymore on myself. Be prepared to always take it with you to refreshen it after some time, because you just can't live without it. Sillage is weak, so it's very office friendly and wearable too.

Bal d'Afrique is like nothing I've ever smelled before. The scent invokes a feeling of the zest for life and indulging in its pleasures, while the deeper - and sometimes smokey - layers of your experience of life are always present in the background... not disturbing the present, but also never being forgotten. The picture of a unique life.

This is a beautiful everyday scent. To me it smells of lemons and milk. It evokes feelings of happiness and safety. Very soft but quite unique.