Peanut

I distributed brochures during the fall holidays to buy it for you for Christmas. I had no idea of the scent. I had no idea about scents, woods, oakmoss, but you just had to get it: A photographer should own and carry "Photo", I thought.

I had no idea if it would suit you, because the scent seemed to me irrelevant. It was the name that counted for me. My ignorance paired with good intentions was rewarded: Because "photo" fitted exactly, it smelled something like the water from the pouring bottle that always wafted in your darkroom when I visited you so as not to take the bus home from school. Woody-sweetish and bitter-soapy, somehow generic, yet anything but arbitrary.

At some point the scent fell a little out of time. He became more invisible in the abundance of the ever more sparkling, sporty new releases, but you wore him unflinchingly. Not exclusively, but continuously. I gave it to you every now and then, because it belonged to you like your snap finger, your beard and your loose sweaters.

"There are still personal things in the bathroom," said the hospice nurse as we packed your things. She opened the window and let cold air flow into the room. Outside, people rushed back and forth to do the very last Christmas shopping, to get the annual, inevitable desperate gifts, naturally just before closing time. I went to the bathroom and looked around: Your shoes next to the oxygen bottle, your lavender soap, toothbrush. The bottle "Photo" at the washbasin. I had no idea you had him with you till the end. It was certainly not the same bottle as the one on Christmas Eve twenty-five years ago. But the same.

I put it in my pocket and took it home with me. I couldn't take you home with me anymore. It didn't make any sense to me, it was Christmas Eve. So much to do now - and yet nothing more. What do you do when your favorite person leaves? Where to look, where to find? Can Christmas even die and how long does "never again" last? An empty head, a full heart, a three-quarter full bottle of "Photo" in the coat pocket.

I still have no idea. Your Photo bottle is still exactly three quarters full. I always only sniff the spray head carefully, more than that I lack the guts. Because the last time you sprayed - and I want it to stay that way. None other than your snap finger should ever operate the sprayer. They have also set "Photo" - how cynical. Maybe it's better that way, because it reduces the probability that someone will give it to someone for Christmas. So by pure coincidence, as a gift of desperation just before closing time.

At least Max Frisch said so. I agree with him, it applies to so many things: We often find what we have antennas for, what we are receptive for, and what we are rather unconsciously or consciously looking for

So "Terre d'Iris" seemed to fall into my lap by accident when I was swapping perfumes with my dear Hermia. I hoped that the exchange fragrance would give me a clean, powdery, cool iris, because I still prefer clean fragrances. What did I get? First of all, a strong, strong top note that seemed to lie so far away from my hopes that I thought, "One size too big for you: You'd better stick to your baby popo fragrances and everything sold in makeup bottles.

But then I urged my hasty fast food nose to be patient and sprayed myself with "Terre d'Iris" every morning until the penny fell loudly: Back to the beginning! An old love of fragrance, painfully missed because only available at astronomical Ebay prices from questionable stocks, has fluttered into my house: "Secrets d'Essences - Iris Noir". The patience of waiting for the right replacement, the patience with the masculine head note, the patience of day-to-day testing has paid off. Or to put it another way: It was just due.

If you don't know my black reference iris, you should know that the top note will make you awake and cheerful, because the citrus fruits are tart, tart, brutally tart. Green and herbaceous, cold and botanical, bitter and evil. What gradually emerges from these citrus fruits, however, is the dark, iced night iris, as the green Frenchman had it bottled in bottles at the time. The one or other note will be different, but the overall impression of the fragrance is so similar that I would speak of twin fragrances. Not necessarily identical. Yet of amazing similarity.

Terrific for me. Sure, but not for every nose a profit. The scent, whether compared to my old love or not, is bulky, unround and strange. Maybe he's for super-patients, maybe he's for banauses who don't know masterpieces like "Hiris" -- like me. Nevertheless: If it pleases at all, then it really does