Parfums Dusita Mélodie de l'Amour (Pissara Umavijani, 2016)
★ ★ ★ ★ — excellent
It’s as if the universe transpired: everything is contingent, this, its ethereal beauty, and fleetingness, this is the only way it could have been.
The raw materials used in Mélodie de l'Amour feel incredibly natural, and yet this perfume is a composition – it’s a sum of its many parts. Yes, the gardenia is present, the tuberose – stemmy, green and creamy – is present. The jasmine, though makes its presence known, isn’t as prominent.
Notes
Gardena, Tuberose, Honey, Peach, Broom Flower, Lily of the Valley, Indian Jasmine, Cedar, Musk
Mélodie de l'Amour is very pretty – and I mean that in the very literal sense of the word. This is a perfume whose bouquet wouldn’t have tolerated the scent of anything funky or animalic, and I think the clean musks and the cedar in the drydown are perfect bases, the proportions of both of which are subdued, and the perfume is the better for it; they bring some lightness and diffusivity to what could otherwise have been monotonously sweet. For the longest time I imagined the base being some amount of sandalwood because there is something about the perfume that feels creamy (but that may just be the gardenia and tuberose), but no, it’s cedar, and it’s clearly used here to bring some structure and depth and less for the scent of cedar itself.
Mélodie de l'Amour, to me, is an epitome of fragile optimism, cloaked in white flowers, bolstered by musks and cedar. Its expansive beauty is easily lost, but so long as you can experience it, this extremely imperfect world of ours appears full of possibility, hope and love. Mélodie de l’Amour’s fragility is symbolic of an optimism that isn’t juvenile – it’s assured, but it’s not unscathed, measured but not vigilant; its optimism isn’t defiant, but neither is it beholden – it just is. Nary a dark note in its scent, Mélodie de l'Amour still manages to evoke a sense of nascent melancholy – perhaps the simultaneous knowledge of its beauty, fragility and temporality – but it is never despondent. Mélodie de l'Amour is, perhaps, quite aptly, the scent of love.
An escape into Mélodie de l'Amour’s olfattive embrace isn’t an escape from the fear of the unknown; it isn’t as much an escape away from anything as much as it is a desire to be reacquainted with the familiar, and Melodie de l’Amour epitomizes this familiarity, and that beauty doesn’t require novelty.
This time last year, I had just returned to New York City after spending a while in Northern Italy, London and Lisbon, and the WHO had just declared COVID-19 a pandemic. We had just gone into lockdown here which, at the time, we couldn’t have predicted would practically last a whole year. In early April Emily and I would go on walks and take immense pleasure at the flowering plants and trees in our very urban landscape: the wafts of Linden Blossoms in Fort Greene and Wild Lilacs in Brooklyn and Manhattan were beautiful interludes to days otherwise filled with emerging news about the pandemic or the neverending unraveling idiocy of a once-president.
It’s April again, there are few things more beautiful than waking up to the violent chirping of birds outside my bedroom window, the magnolias are in bloom, 36% of New York State has had at least one dose of vaccine, there is an air of optimism on these streets. We’re still humans, we have known suffering, and we will suffer again, hopefully we will have learned enough to take care of another a little better. I couldn’t have timed this review of Melodie de L’Amour better.
When to wear
I have really enjoyed wearing Mélodie de l'Amour on warm, but not hot, and cool, but sunny days.
Linden Blossoms at Fort Greene Park
Projection/Sillage
Mélodie de l'Amour is an intimate, skin scent. Projection and sillage are both poor on my skin. While I don’t care about the sillage, I do wish it projected a tiny bit more. In my experience Mélodie de l'Amour benefits from some warmth and humidity.
Where to buy
Parfums Dusita often tends to have nice offers where they offer free samples, maybe some free art or tote, and free international shipping. But exchange rates being what they are, if you are in the US, it’s probably just as good (maybe sometimes cheaper) to buy from a US retailer. Luckyscent, Indigo Perfumery, and ZGO Perfumery all carry Mélodie de l'Amour, and it retails for $350 for a 50ml extrait de parfum.
