My love for fragrances started when I was very young. I remember my grandfather leaving some lilac petals on his prayer matt. We had beautiful lilac bushes in our backyard, and every spring I was swooned by the intoxicating smell of them. My home town, Tabriz (not as much as Kashan, Iran) was known for its nuts and roses. Every spring, my mother used to make rose and pistachio jam, the aroma of which would fill the house. 

Walking to school with my mom, I loved catching the smell of freshly baked bread and sweets the early morning breeze. After school and when my mother was busy cooking, I used to wear her make up, spray her fragrances, and twirl in her ill-fitting dresses. 

My older sister started buying perfumes with her allowance when I was about 6-7 years old. I recall her bathing in Jovan Musk and Charlie before leaving the house, choking everyone within a kilometer radius. My sister and I went fragrance shopping often in traditional cosmetic stores in Iran, where you had to ask the storekeeper to hand you the fragrance from the locked cabinet to test. I was shy and used my older sister as the middleman to ask for 15+ fragrances behind the counter.

I clearly recall discovering the Kenzo brand in one of the stores in Iran, and just like that, I had to have every single bottle. I collected Kenzo fragrances for a while. Years later, a kind friend of mine, found me a bottle of Kenzo that I treasure in memory of my late teens. Later, when I moved to Tehran, I started collecting Hermes fragrances. By the time I graduated from the university, I had about 40 bottles.