Balmain de Balmain (Eau de Toilette) by Balmain

Bottle Design:
Pierre Balmain, Xavier Rousseau

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Balmain de Balmain Balmain 1998 Eau de Toilette

7.9 / 10 114 Ratings

A popular perfume by Balmain for women, released in 1998. The scent is green-chypre. The production was apparently discontinued.
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Main accords

Green

Chypre

Spicy

Fresh

Woody

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Bergamot

Pepper

Galbanum

Currant bud

Heart Notes

Iris

Jasmine

Rose

Base Notes

Oakmoss

Sandalwood Vetiver

Vetiver

Patchouli

Perfumer

Antoine Maisondieu

Ratings

Scent

7.9114 Ratings

Longevity

7.682 Ratings

Sillage

6.474 Ratings

Bottle

7.382 Ratings

Submitted by TVC15 · last update on 10/25/2025.

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Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Balmain de Balmain Parfum

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Quartz

Numero Uno

The Afternoon of a Faun

Cara Mia

Reviews

20 in-depth fragrance descriptions

01/18/2014

Omni
71 Reviews

Omni

Very helpful Review 7

Brambles and Ferns

This is definitely a man's chypre. It's my type of chypre and I'm a woman, almost sixty. Yegads! That's spooky. And it is spooky to find this Jean Shrimpton of a perfume on my wrist. (She was famous for launching the mini skirt, being photographed by David Bailey and being the face of Chanel No 19)

This is a fougere in the first instance. I had some Morny Fougere scented shower gel and BdeB was perfect to use after my shower in combo.

This is superior to Molinard de Molinard in MHO and like MdeM, is availabel as a mini tester online. I would recommend a test run on this fragrance. Very little patchouli. Do try it with a Little Black Dress or a Little Black Negligee, or jeans and a tee (lashings of mascara and smoky eyes for the girls) Yeah, it is a walk down memory lane but the hedgerows are thick with blossom, moist with rain, and the soft mossy woods are near. Wallking with Pierre, very nice.

07/23/2013

8Scent

TURQUOISE
27 Reviews

TURQUOISE

Top Review 5

Aristocratic!

To me Balmain De Balmain is a beautiful and refined perfume that makes you feel like a noticeable elegant lady! THE LEAST!
I would describe it- on my skin- as a green chypre floral!

What can I say about it??
The truth.. I loved the top and middle notes but the dry down after a couple of hours it trouble me, all the flower notes are almost gone and the smell becomes too harsh and "manly"
Hmmm..you know what?? I don't care!..
I want this stuff!

Balmain de Balmain has an aura of aristocracy that nowadays can't be easily found!

07/05/2013

SystemeD
58 Reviews

SystemeD

Very helpful Review 6

Uncommon chypre

This marvelous chypre is yet another credit to the unassuming yet accomplished house of Balmain, which consistently offers fine fragrances at affordable prices.

Balmain de Balmain is a green, yet slightly sweet chypre that appeals to men and women alike. It opens with a bracing green bergamot and galbanum accord, but there's also something there that sweetens it up just enough to keep my teeth from clenching. Over time, if I really focus, I can pick out occasional soft wafts of rose and a hint of iris as this fragrance unfolds, but the slightly-sweet galbanum greenness continues throughout, even as the lovely vetiver-spiked chypre base comes to the fore.

I just love this classic. I think it's brilliant, and perfectly balanced. And because, as other reviewers have noted, it's underrated, you'll almost certainly be the only one in the room wearing it.

Unless, of course, you go to the same places I do.

07/17/2012

jtd
484 Reviews

jtd

Helpful Review 9

out of time

Balmain de Balmain is best viewed as a part of the Balmain lineage rather than as a part of the trends of its time, the late 90s-early 00s. Perfumery and its audience were still wrestling with the extremes, unable to find a balance. And the extremes had gone that last step over the line. The 80s power fragrances, notoriously large and tiresome, took ethylmaltol as a cue and went from loud to shrieking. At the other end, the bland, sepia fragrances of the early nineties, in their search for penance for the cocaine-style perfumes of the 1980s, codified a style that embraced dilution in a failed attempt at minimalism. These limp, pallid fragrances were the perfect launching ground for the new homeopathy of perfume: the reconceptualization of water and air as scents.

Balmain de Balmain makes little sense among its cohorts. It doesn’t fit the mold of any of the trends and it doesn’t seem to target a particularly active demographic. But it takes its place in the Balmain line easily, matching up logically with its prececessors: Vent Vert (brisk and crisp), Jolie Madame (sharp and pitchy), Ivoire (another perfume out of step, out of time.)

The chypre genre is a large and unhurried one. Ingredients allowing, that is IFRA allowing, the chypre genre still has room for discovery. B d B isn’t earthshaking. It’s hardly even novel, but it is a very good perfume that engages the genre actively without seeming old or retro. It has all the attributes of a chypre: evolution, complexity and the feeling of engaged poise, that combination of austerity and vivaciousness that suggests intelligence at ease. Also, typically chypre, it suits many moods.

We chypre fans love to split hairs in sub-categorizing chypres. Fruity, green, dry, hesperidic, ambery, etc.. I consider B de B a floral chypre. While there is plenty of galbanum, and B de B has a green feel, its use of blackcurrant bud is the defining feature. A heavy hand with blackcurrant can make a perfume tip back and forth between piquant and pissy, but modulated by the galbanum, jasmine and labdanum in the mix, B de B has a long arc that streches from starchy, stem-snapping coolness to a quiet cool/warm, mossy/ambery finish over a period of 10-12 hours.

1998 was actually an interesting year in mainstream perfumery. It produces a number of perfumes that stood apart from the 80s-90s dilemma I mentioned above (Bvlgari Black, Feu d’Issey, Kenzo Jungle, Guerlain Coriolan, Cartier Declaration) and heralded some solutions on the horizon. Balmain ran head-first into the chypre genre and comes out with a gorgeous little black dress of a perfume. A smart choice any year.

12/06/2012

7Scent 10Longevity 5Sillage

Seatonica
21 Reviews

Seatonica

Helpful Review 5

Y lite

To me Balmain de Balmain is a kind of Y lite. On the same continuum as that greatly under-rated YSL beauty and not exactly lacking in complexity it somehow misses the dimensionality of Y, if complexity and dimensionality in a perfume can be considered slightly different qualities. Would you follow my drift if I told you it was less chewy than Y, and that in my book chewiness in a perfume is a thing greatly to be desired?

The green character of this perfume is overlaid by a rosey/jasminey hue. While I do confess that this slightly disappoints the green aficianado in me the well- behaved B de B is no less lovely for that and will indeed have you periodically sniffing your wrists. It is exceedingly pleasant in spring, it lasts and lasts and being highly affordable I don't hesitate in recommending it for your consideration.

More reviews

Statements

12 short views on the fragrance

Evangeline

12 months ago

10Scent 7Longevity 6Sillage

1

It just hit me, BdB is Eau du Soir plus galbanum...a big ol' boatload of green galbanum. Spectacular androgynous chypre...so very chic.

Matux

4 years ago

1

Female chypre that makes a statement: bold, strong, complex, difficult to wear - carelessness can lead it to wear the wearer.

Cumulnimbus

4 months ago

8Scent 8Longevity 7Sillage

Classic french chic chypre. I should have bought it when I could. Fresh, elegant, suportive.

SchatzSucher

4 years ago

9Scent 8Longevity 6Sillage

33

24

Floral freshness, shady green, and a cool moss-patchwood base.
A wonderfully retro chypre scent that has it all.

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Ergoproxy

4 years ago

8Scent 8Longevity 7Sillage

14

10

I like it better on the second test. A quite mature floral scent, with a delicate green hue and subtle sweetness in the dry down. Fine.

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Greenfan1701

2 months ago

8Scent 8Longevity 8Sillage

11

4

Bright green, fresh, yet spicy and very aromatic, wonderful and cozy. GREAT. Thank you Katja, my bunny :-),- I'm thrilled.

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Mareike

10 years ago

9Scent 7.5Longevity 5Sillage

9

1

Green, but not just. Herbal. Rounded. Classic. Powerful. Friendly. Timeless. Alert. Neat. Feminine. Masculine. Grown-up - not old.

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Gold

8 years ago

8.5Scent 10Longevity 10Sillage

6

1998 feels like it's from another time, an exciting chypre, bitter-herb with retro charm. Unisex. Unfortunately, it's already gone again. Such a shame.

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