FOMOWA PARIS
AKATSUKI MELBA
2025
PERFUMER
Camille Leguay
poached peach
osmanthus absolute
blackcurrant bud absolute
frosted raspberry
salted caramel butter
vanilla
tonka bean absolute
‘Through this fragrant road trip, Akatsuki Melba becomes more than just a perfume: an olfactory adventure where each spray evokes a memory, each note captures an emotion. Uniting the fruity richness of AKATSUKI peach, the sharpness of Siberian raspberry, and the authenticity of Guérande salted butter caramel, this fragrance embodies a perfect fusion of the exotic and the indulgent, the familiar and the unexpected.’ – Fomowa (Translated)
If I had to sum up my experience with Akatsuki Melba in one (paradoxal) sentence it would be: I dislike the direction it took, but I like it for this direction.
Meaning, it’s an in-your-face, somewhat juvenile, candy sweet release. As someone who’s always been a big fan of the sister-brand Lorga, I was a bit skeptical of the first Fomowa release, Pannaco Tahaa, but I ended up loving it. The brand assured me (not just by the release, but also verbally) that it would remain ‘truly niche’. I found little of that to hold true with the follow-up Red Keela Split and now again with Akatsuki Melba, it seems to have fully given into to straight-forward gourmand trend.
It also means that, for such a cloyingly sweet candy fragrance, there are elements that I enjoy more than I expected. Especially, the saltiness. While this is not the type of fragrance that I get excited for, but my experience wearing it was totally fine. And I definitely prefer Akatsuki Melba over Red Keela Split.
What I get straight away is the scent of opening a bag of jelly beans or some other kind of sugar-coated, caramelized candy with mild fruity tones to it. Other people I’ve spoken to named ‘pink starburst’ and ‘Haribo gummybears’ as first reaction. In that mix, I also find a salted liquorice or salmiak, which I end up enjoying in this fragrance.
It feels very linear to me, meaning that the saltiness, sweetness and mild fruitiness are consistently balanced. The opening was a bit of a surprise to me, as it totally lacks any fresher, brighter, sour clues to fruitiness on my skin (not even enough for me to really consider the pink starburst scent). It’s full-on candy from the very first second. But you’re hit with that saltiness straight away as well and both facets exist side by side until the end, which ended up being a pleasant enough affair.
One of the better constructed ‘candy’ fragrances. I’d take Akatsuki Melba over almost any of the sugary, ‘cotton candy’, Baccarat Rouge-type, Kalotinis or Kayali-marshmallow type of fragrances, but I do think it unabashedly appeals to that audience, which I’m not really a part of.
