Osman Ahmed at home in North London, UK

Everything about Osman Ahmed’s apartment is designed around a life of intellect, pleasure and taste. Just how we like it. As I walked in to the tinkling sound of a wind chime coming from the garden, where she sometimes writes, I was immediately struck by how she's made a sort of Carrie Bradshaw dream apartment: books, clothes, beautiful objects, art, scent and the evidence of a life well lived. But of course its the bathroom that we are most curious about...

I sat down with Osman in her stunning North London home to talk about two subjects very close to our hearts: scent and bathing. We spoke about growing up in a big Kashmiri family, the rituals she inherited from her parents, her enduring love of India, and the pleasures of having a very, very long bath.

Osman is a London-based writer and creative consultant whose work spans fashion, culture, beauty and design. Formerly Fashion Features Director at i-D, she has written for publications including Vogue, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar and the Financial Times, and is the writer behind Private Parts, her newsletter exploring style, beauty, art and the intimate details of life.

 

HAIR DEFIES GRAVITY UNDERWATER

My first memories of the bath are complete chaos.

I grew up in a big Kashmiri family. I’m the youngest of six, and we had one bathroom in our house, so I was always in the bath with people coming in and out. We also lived in one of those houses where halfway through running the bath you’d have to shout downstairs, “Mum, turn off the hot water!” because if she was using the hot water, it wouldn’t be coming through in the bathroom.

I remember spending so much time in there. I would get into trouble for filling the bath really high because I loved the feeling of being submerged. Looking back, I would sit in there for hours playing with dolls. I remember discovering that when you put a doll’s hair underwater, it defies gravity. I was completely in my own world, in my own imagination.

 

SILK VEIL

 

I think I’ve always spent a lot of time in my interior world.

As a child, my best friend was a mop called Imogen. It was all going on internally. When I think about why I could spend so much time in the bath, it was because I wasn’t really in the bath. I was in an ocean. I was on a boat. I was somewhere else entirely.

That’s the beautiful thing about childhood. We sometimes forget the power of imagination and the power of play. You don’t always have to be hustling or optimising or switched on. You don’t need to be listening to a podcast, watching something or doing something.

Sometimes it’s just about retreating into your inner world.

 

BATHING, FAITH AND FAMILY

My family is Muslim, so bathing and washing had another meaning for me growing up.

Before prayer, we perform wudu, the Islamic ritual washing. If you’re praying five times a day, washing becomes something that happens throughout your day rather than simply something you do in the morning or evening. I grew up watching my parents perform wudu and learning it from a very young age.

When I really think about it now, that was bathing in a completely different way because it was also a spiritual practice. We think about bathing now as this moment of quiet, solitude and reflection, but prayer can serve a similar purpose. It gives you these moments throughout the day when you step back from everyday life and whatever you have going on and focus on something else.

THE SCENT OF MOTHER & FATHER

My parents immigrated to London in the 1960s and we’re a big Kashmiri family.

When I think about my dad, I think of Imperial Leather soap and musk — that kind of musky aftershave smell. My mum is something much more powdery. She wore Chanel No. 5, and whenever I smell someone wearing it now, it’s like that Proustian madeleine thing. It takes me straight back.

Oils were also a huge part of growing up in a South Asian family. I remember my mum using oil in her hair and buying it from the South Asian shops in London. There was this whole idea of making your hair thicker and glossier and healthier, having that long, silky, dark Indian hair. You just grew up with it. Nowadays we might call those things self-care or package them up as luxury, but they were simply part of everyday life.

 

 

 

Even now in India, a lot of people bathe in a more traditional way, with a big balti (बाल्टी / بالٹی) simply means “bucket” in Hindi/Urdu and several other South Asian languages. You fill it with water and oil, and then wash with that water. It’s a ritualistic, very ancient way of bathing. I remember visiting my grandparents when I was little — they’ve since passed — and it was like the old country. No one had a shower or a Western loo or anything like that. I remember those trips as a child and thinking, “Mum, I don’t know how to use this hole in the ground.” But it was great because it taught me that the world is much bigger than the one you’re used to. 

 

 

I think those experiences are also why, even to this day, I’m very good at travelling. I love going to places where you don’t necessarily have the comforts of Western luxury. I was in Sri Lanka this year and someone asked me about my favourite place that I stayed. It wasn’t a luxury hotel; it was this little cottage with a bed and a mosquito net around it. The bathroom was really simple, the Wi-Fi didn’t really work and there was no signal. 

For me, that is the greatest luxury. You’re completely separate from the world. There’s a simplicity to it that allows you to have time to think, to live and to feel, which is very hard in a big city.

 

 

 

OSMAN AHMED’S  SCENT PALETTE

The thing I wear every single day, and that everyone associates with me, is patchouli.

My go-to is Santa Maria Novella Patchouli, which I’ve worn for so many years that I feel I should get a discount. I’ve watched the price go up and up, and the number of bottles I’ve sold just from people asking me what I’m wearing must be ridiculous.

I also love Frédéric Malle, and I’ve been wearing Madame Grey by Violet Grey and pairing it with patchouli. It’s almost honeyed and very sexy.

Friends have said to me that they’ll go into a shop or a gallery and know I’ve been there earlier because they can smell me. I don’t know exactly what it is about patchouli. I think part of it is that it feels very Indian to me. It’s deep and spicy and sensual and rich. It makes me feel really sexy.

I’m not really a girly girl. People associate me now with a certain image of femininity, but I’m not particularly interested in powdery florals or pretty, whimsical things. It’s the same with clothes. I have a much more savoury tooth when it comes to clothes and scent.

I love patchouli. I love sandalwood. I love tobacco.

 

 

I prefer smoke to sweet. I love jasmine because there’s something about it that is so different to other floral smells. It has this almost fleshy quality. Tuberose does too. I see them as intoxicating, possessive and active flowers rather than passive ones. For me, those scents are really wrapped up in pleasure.

I have no interest in traditional ideas of what is meant to be feminine. And I think that applies to life as much as it does to my taste. I have no interest in the idea that there are things you’re supposed to do, things expected of you, or things you have to perform in order to be perceived as more feminine. I just don’t buy into that.

 

 

The only thing I strive to do is make myself happy, make my life more sensual and discover what my own pleasure is.

 

 

 

INDIA THROUGH SCENT

In India, there’s this amazing lifestyle empire called Good Earth, founded by Anita Lal. She has the most beautiful shops filled with handmade objects and incredible bathing products. That was one of the first places I discovered an oil that you could wash with.

 

There’s also a really small Indian brand called Call of the Valley. They make these little roll-on oils. One is called Clay, and it smells like jasmine and clay. To me, it is the smell of the first monsoon rain hitting the earth. It’s one of those scents that completely transports you into this emotional hinterland. I love monsoon season in India. I think it’s incredibly romantic. I try to go to India twice a year, but if I could go ten times a year, I would. It’s my favourite place.

 

 

The things you taste and smell there belong to an entirely different world from London. I always get slightly depressed when I come back. I’ll be driving home from Heathrow, looking out of the window, and I think, “Oh yes. Everyone is wearing a black puffer coat and the light is grey.”

India is this glorious celebration of the five senses all coming together, sometimes in this completely overwhelming way that makes you feel very small and part of something much bigger.

Obviously, I was born in London. I grew up in London. At heart, I am a Londoner. I was born within the sound of the Bow Bells in East London, so I’m technically a true Cockney — not that I sound like one. I love the duality of those two places for me.

 

 

OSMAN AHMED’S  FOUR-STEP BATHING RITUAL

I — PREPARE

I love nothing more than a hot bath. For me, it is the moment in my day where I have complete solitude, quiet and peace, and I can really reflect. I start by lighting lots of candles and some incense sticks that I get from India. You’ve got to purify the space. Then I start running a hot bath — although, like so many people, I always make it much hotter than I can actually handle.

And then I put on music. I am a bath purist. The only thing I like to do in the bath is listen to music. I can’t watch anything. I can’t read. At most, I might speak to a friend on the phone. But for me, the bath is a  time for active listening. I like to listen to Zakir Hussain, Sade, Nina Simone and Lauryn Hill. I’ll put on a great album and really listen to it from start to finish. It’s solitude. I know I’m going to be soaking and sitting there, so I can actually give the music my attention. 

Also: I’m wearing a full bonnet. Hair wrapped back. I love a bath, but I do not love getting my head wet. I’m submerged up to my shoulders and that’s where it ends. Sometimes I’ll even get into the bath with a full face of makeup because sometimes you just need a bath to start your day.

 

 

II — PURIFY

I’m genuinely not just saying this: I wash with 39BC every single day.

I’ve been the biggest fan since I first discovered it and I rave about it to my friends and give it to people as gifts. For me, an oil wash is one of the most sensual ways of washing your body. My skin responds really well to it. I like to feel very moisturised and I don’t like anything that is going to really dry out my skin.

When I’m running the bath, I’ll put some oil wash into the water and immediately you have this beautiful perfumed aroma. The candles are going. The incense is burning. Everything starts to feel very sensual.

My current favourite is SILK VEIL, particularly in summer. I also love DENARII, which is very sexy.

Another thing I’m a huge advocate of is dry brushing. I dry brush every day. It’s one of the simplest and most effective rituals for the body, and I love the way it primes and exfoliates the skin.

I’ll occasionally use a scrub — not every day — and I have all these little tools I use in the bath.

My facialist Nataliya Robinson introduced me to this beautiful seaweed treatment that you can put into the bath, which is incredible for the skin.

I’m also a big believer in self-massage. Obviously it’s wonderful if someone else is doing it for you, but you can do it at home. The bath is such a good time because your body and muscles are already warm and relaxed.

I also have tools from Kama Ayurveda that I use around the face and underneath my eyes. 

 

III — SOAK

This is my favourite part.

I want to sit in the bath. I want to listen to Sade. I want to smoke a cigarette. Maybe I want to have a good cry. I want to think about things in my life. I want to think about the future. I want to really go there. I let it all out in the bath.

I’m not on my phone. I’m listening to every lyric and every note. I’m feeling it. It’s such an intense time to actually feel things. The only other place, weirdly, where I experience something similar is on an aeroplane. It’s that same feeling of being suspended away from normal life.

I would love a bath on an aeroplane one day.

I put salts in the water because I love how relaxed they make my body feel, but otherwise I keep it simple. Sometimes I’ll put on a face mask and let that sit for a while.

A shower is where I do the things I need to do — shaving, scrubbing, all the intensive maintenance.

For me, a bath is about relaxation. It’s about doing less and not feeling like you have duties to fulfil or a checklist to complete.

IV — SEAL

I will never, ever leave the house unmoisturised.

After bathing, I use glycolic acid over my body. For me, it really helps with dark spots and hyperpigmentation, but it’s also a great exfoliant and leaves the skin looking incredible.

Then comes body butter.

I love a rich body butter with ingredients like shea butter and oils. I want something that glides onto the skin. I also love Augustinus Bader.

If I have 30 minutes to get ready, I know that some of those minutes are being assigned to body butter. Then I use a drier body oil to seal everything in. The body oil locks in all that moisture from the butter and leaves the skin glowing.

I love my skin to look as glowing and brown as possible.

I remember reading an interview from the 1930s with Joan Crawford where her advice was essentially: always moisturise your elbows and knees. That stayed with me.

But there is one more thing.

For the true advanced oilers, once I’m dressed I have a separate oil for the exposed areas. This is not the oil I would put underneath my clothes. This is high shine. Collarbones. Arms. Legs. Anywhere you want the light to hit. I like my skin to be a reflective surface. And then I’m ready to leave the house.

Very low maintenance, clearly.