My closing coverage for 2025 is still on-going with 62 fragrances now being rated. A weak year overall means some products have an easier opportunity at making the top of the charts and one of Swedish niche brand Byredo's latest, that being the flanker to hero franchise Bal d'Afrique Eau de Parfum, appears set for a top 10 finish on the year with potential for a top 5.
I first wore the EDP a month ago (September 2025) and for this review, I am wearing the two versions side-by-side to offer the strongest overview. One thing has surprised me when I first wore Bal d'Afrique Eau de Parfum is that very few people were describing it the way I was: the scent's main DNA is of a citrusy sugared amber and it's to the point where it could easily be viewed as being adjacent to the profile of Baccarat Rouge 540 Eau de Parfum, i.e. the sweetness stems from a derivative play on saffron. The EDP version's dry-down quality is less impressive with the florals coming in and the musks reminding me of that glossy newspaper smell that you see in fragrances like Le Labo's AnOther 13 Eau de Parfum and Byredo's own Super Cedar as well as De Los Santos.
With Bal d'Afrique Absolu de Parfum, I feel like the DNA leans even more heavily into the sugared amber smell. The primary accords of the EDP version, i.e. fresh-sweet-citrusy-fruity, are all still there, but the Absolu version (to my nose) has stripped out most of the florals and built the fragrances around the blackcurrant, lemon, musk and amber. That is to say there is less development with the scent and I'd say that actually places Bal d'Afrique Absolu de Parfum in the same genre of fragrances as Clive Christian's Town & Country and Fragrance du Bois' Lucius, i.e. citrusy BR540 alternatives. However, unlike these two comps, Bal d'Afrique Absolu de Parfum leans into the fruitiness (which the 2 comps don't even have).
The profile offered by the EDP has garnered such success that calling it the female market equivalent of Bvlgari's hero franchise "Le Gemme - Tygar | Bvlgari" feels accurate. I'd argue Bal d'Afrique Absolu de Parfum takes the better parts of the EDP and structures the scent around them, worthy of a 1 point improvement over the EDP. The result is a longevity improvement of at least 3-4 hours (longevity +3 points; 7/10) and a sillage where people will actually be able to smell you when you're nearby (sillage +4 points; 6/10). Given the retail of €290/100ml, I am placing the value at 6/10 with some upside potential.
For years, the problems of Bal d'Afrique Eau de Parfum allowed competitors like Initio's Musk Therapy Extrait de Parfum and Boadicea's Hanuman to carve into their market. From my experience with all of the products, I would argue the Initio and the Boadicea are more-so competing against one-another than Bal d'Afrique Eau de Parfum as they made relevant improvements to the DNA. With Bal d'Afrique Absolu de Parfum, Byredo has a direct competitor to those fragrances and while I believe Hanuman is still the top product in the genre, Absolu has tightened the gap to the point where spending that extra money may no longer be worth it.
