Introducing Destin De Balmain, Your New Signature Scent

Welcome to Don’t Sleep On This, a series dedicated to the products NYLON’s beauty team will rebuy over and over again and want you to know about.

One of the biggest issues I have with my apartment is the lack of surfaces. It’s a problem that has plagued my life for nearly two years now, as it forces me to be much more judicious with the minimal space I do have. Thrifted tchotchkes are automatically siloed to the living room, items with sentimental value go straight to my bedroom windowsill, and then there’s the most coveted surface of them all: the nightstand. In order for a product to earn permanent residency atop my mahogany dresser, it not only needs to meet the standard bedside checkpoints (can be used daily, doesn’t take up too much space, won’t damage the wood) but it has to look great, too. Recently, I found myself welcoming a new product into the exclusive club: Destin de Balmain Eau de Parfum.

As one of the fastest-growing beauty categories, the fragrance industry has become a bit — and I say this with love — overcrowded in recent years. So when a legacy brand like Balmain Beauty enters the arena on a prestige level, it probably means they have a standout product on their hands. Enter: Destin de Balmain, Balmain Beauty’s debut prestige fragrance. Classified as part of the “floral fruity” fragrance family, this perfume gets its rich scent from neon-saturated, naturally-sourced strawberries without being overly sweet, thanks to combined notes of peony entwine with sandalwood, patchouli, and baies rose.

Because I’m constantly testing out new fragrances in my line of work, I sometimes suffer from beauty writer-induced scent blindness. As a resolve, I like to use my roommate as a barometer to measure how people outside the beauty space will react. Without even having to ask, she emerged from her bedroom within seconds of my first spritz, Destin de Balmain particles still in the air, and immediately offered up a compliment: “It smells good.” She spotted the bottle and I handed it over. “Can I try?” she asked, pointer finger already on the actuator, anxiously awaiting my blessing. From that point on, I was sold.

The floral-forward formulation is sure to be my go-to this coming spring/summer, though it doesn’t need to be relegated to the warm-weather seasons. The hints of spicy Akigalawood and musky Ambrexolide reminds me of a scent my mom would wear in the early 2000s; it’s mature, it’s assertive, and it’s strong enough to last throughout the workday and the hour-plus Metro North ride to and from the city. That’s grade-A signature scent material, if you ask me.

And then, there’s the bottle. The (refillable!) glass tube is embossed with the PB monogram on all four sides, turning the house’s signature Labyrinth motif into three-dimensional pathways — a touch that all luxury-fashion obsessives can appreciate. And as a gold jewelry wearer, the gold cap feels like it was designed specifically with me in mind. Needless to say, my nightstand has never been happier.

Destin de Balmain Eau de Parfum is now available exclusively at Ulta.