Olfactive Flashback XI.

One of my best friend here in Grasse invited me over for dinner on Saturday night. I think it is the start of the goodbyes' series already, but I tried not to think about it.

She is an excellent cook, I was served chicken with asparagus. For the asparagus, she wanted to prepare a sauce made of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Her olive oil bottle was almost empty, so I helped her to refill it with their stock of olive oil coming directly from Tunisia. We wasted a lot of oil in the "rebottling" process, but most importantly I had another olfactive flashback when the thick aroma of the pure olive oil hit my nose.

To my biggest surprise, it took me back to my grandmother's house, inside the bedroom, changing the bed linen. The clean bad linen -stored carefully until usage into my grandma's cupboard ca. 25 years ago- smelled exactly the same like the scent of some premium quality extra virgin olive oil from Tunisia. Fatty, green, earthy and a bit acid too.

The smell was not "alike" nor "similar", it was the SAME. I know it. With my nose, with my brain where the scent directly went to poke that part where this particular scent was stocked just until now, to fill my head with memories and my heart with warmth and love.

Grasse - Paris, one way please

In 3 weeks time I am moving away from Grasse for good. As much as it is difficult to leave this place, I think had my dose. I had my "obligatory" 3 years spent in the cradle of perfumery, like all famous noses had at a certain point of their education. I am now one of them; one of the tiny group of people in an already small club of perfumers.

Grasse taught me the admiration for natural raw materials, I do believe there is no more ideal place to learn that. It was a priceless experience in a special environment, where the perfume industry is so concentrated and so intensely active.

Weird it might sound, but it is not in perfumery that I have learnt the most. It is the continuous personal development that everybody goes through who comes here for a definite time. I would say, it is a common "side effect" for all perfumers passing by Grasse.

3 years of living alone, being far from your beloved ones; managing alone in the highly competitive perfume industry makes you tougher, stronger, more confident, more wise but you cannot spare the suffering and pain you pay for the 'lessons'.

As the greatest mentors, Grasse made me a better perfumer and a better person.

I will miss it. I will miss my friends who turned into my family during the years. I will miss the beautiful climate the South of France is so famous for. I will miss the magnificent surrounding valleys blooming thousands of different type of flowers, a world class experience for both the eyes and for the nose.

I will miss my amazing jasmine bush on my beautiful terrace, which blooms exceptionally two months early this year... Probably to say goodbye to me in a proper way, to please me with its narcotic aroma on my last few days. Never had a nicer farewell gift.