Balahe by Leonard

A real man’s perfume, made for women 30 and up. Unique and different. At first application, it smells a bit sweet, almost cloying, but once it dries down, it smells like a millionaire.

Anyone else not see a review for this? Remember that legendary quartet from the mid-80s featuring tuberose, incense, sandalwood, and plum? Think Dior Poison or Cacharel’s Lou Lou. Those animalic, dirty perfumes with flashes of fresh, crisp fruit, like mixing a censer with a fruity floral cleaner. Balahe was a precursor to that baroque, cold trend. The key thing is its two-faced development; the drydown is vastly different from the opening, like wearing two perfumes at once. The opening is a fresh, sexy, smooth, androgynous plum, evoking an adolescent body without cellulite or flab. It’s woody plum, narcotic from neroli, ultra-sexual from algalia, and treacherous from the incense. Balahe sports that classic Dior Poison clash between something overdressed and libidinous and luminous notes. While Dior’s mix stays relatively consistent, Balahe keeps that dizzying woody fruity floral but introduces resinous sweetness that turns the drydown into a distant cousin of Shalimar or Habanita, thanks to vanilla and opoponax with its tobacco-like, honeyed sweetness. If I had to nitpick, it feels a bit artificial and raspy; the finish isn’t entirely refined, especially at first, with an insidious throat hit that eventually fades once the olfactory pyramid settles. But hey, it’s not a disaster. The bottle is a masterpiece: an irregular black rock with a red velvet ribbon and a stopper that looks like an Oriental pagoda. Balahe is an exotic, ultra-narcotic, eccentric, flamboyant, loud, and vulgar jewel like no other. I recommend it to lovers of those woody oriental florals from the 80s—cold perfumes packed with hypnotic notes. With eyes closed, anyone who enjoys Dior Poison, Cacharel’s Lou Lou, Loewe’s Gala, or Joop Femme will appreciate its ambiguity and grandeur. P.S. Seeing its creator, Daniel Molière, it’s no surprise it’s a wild fragrance (Insensé, Eau de Givenchy, Santos, Guy Laroche Clandestine). P.S. I think I tried the Miss Balahe flanker in the 90s; it was a cool perfume, with vanilla-citrus, dry, and wild notes with hints of bitter, animalic sweetness.