Still, as I grew up and left my hometown hungry to discover new places, my passion for the hammam and ancestral beauty rituals faded.

Faded, but it never disappeared.

Some days it was a smell, a sight, or a childhood memory that brought it to mind. But I pushed it away. Too busy with experiencing wonderful, new things. The first serious flashback happened in my mid-twenties, in Paris. The trigger was simple and unexpected: instead of asking what kind of food I would fancy from Morocco, my parents asked if there was anything I wanted from home. Undoubtedly, they thought the answer would be food-related, because it always was (and if you don’t know why, please try some Moroccan food). However, I surprised myself (and them) by asking for them to ship all the traditional Moroccan beauty ingredients they could find, suddenly excited at the prospect of mixing my own potions at home.