The Japanese Fruit That Put Our Soprano Back in the Front Row

For 22 years she was the best voice in our church choir. Then she was moved to the back row, and none of us would tell her why. I sing alto two seats down. This is what I watched happen.

Marjorie was the best voice in our choir. Until she wasn't.

Marjorie isn't her real name. She asked me to change it, and once you read this you'll know why. She has been a dear friend of mine for 30 years.

She sang soprano in the front row of our little brick church for 22 years. She sang "O Holy Night" at the Christmas Eve service almost every one of those years, and people came from other churches to hear it. She retired from the front office of the elementary school, where every child in town knew her name. She has been married to Gordon for 44 years. Six grandkids. The best lemon pound cake in the county.

Someone you'd say had it all. Except for one problem nobody would name.

The back row, "for balance"

Last January, our director, Warren, kept Marjorie after Wednesday practice. He told her he was moving her to the back row "for balance."

She stood at the far end of the top riser after that, by the door. The soprano who had stood beside her for eleven years asked to switch to the other end. In the robe room, the other women started hanging their robes on the far rack. I heard some of what they said back there. I won't repeat it.

Then Marjorie started pulling away. She came in right as practice started and left on the last amen. She quit coming to the Wednesday potluck. I'd see her in the parking lot, spraying perfume on her wrists and neck before she came inside.

"I think I'll quit after Easter, Nell. I don't think they want me up there anymore."Marjorie, in the church parking lot

She tried everything she could think of

Marjorie knew something was wrong, and she is a woman who fixes things. Our robes go to the cleaners once a year, but she took hers home and washed it every week. She switched detergents. She showered before practice and again before bed. She bought a stronger deodorant and a new perfume.

Two months of that. The empty space beside her on the riser stayed empty.

And I said nothing. I'm ashamed of that now. I didn't know how to say it to a friend I love.

The question nobody else asked

At Easter, Marjorie's niece Katie came home after a year teaching English in a small town in Japan.

After Easter dinner, the two of them were alone at the sink doing dishes. Katie dried a platter, set it down, and asked, "Can I ask you something, and you promise not to be mad? Has anybody ever told you about the smell that comes after 40?"

Marjorie told me about it the next Wednesday in the robe room. She cried a little. So did I.

Katie had explained it right there at the sink. As we get older, usually after 40, the skin starts making something called 2-nonenal (say it "two-NO-nuh-nal"). It's a natural oil with a faint, musty smell, like a closet that's been shut up too long. It shows up on collars, pillowcases and scarves. It isn't poor hygiene. It's biology.

Then Katie held up the greasy roasting pan. "See this? Plain water slides right over it." Regular soap is the same. It's built for water-based sweat and everyday dirt. Nonenal is an oil, so soap can't wash it off. Deodorant and perfume only cover it up.

And here's the cruel part. Your own nose gets used to it. It's with you all day, so your brain stops noticing. Marjorie had been standing in the middle of it every Sunday and couldn't smell a thing.

Where the persimmon comes in

"In Japan, people have used persimmon for this for a long time. That's the first place I ever heard anybody talk about it out loud."Katie, at the kitchen sink

That's the whole history, and it's all Marjorie needed. No secret recipe. No legend. Just one plain fact, and a reason it works: the tannin in persimmon sticks to that oil and lifts it off the skin, so it rinses away. It doesn't cover the smell. It takes it with it.

That night Katie showed her a soap on her phone called True Tannin. The company is named after the tannin, and the bar is built around it. It's softened with coconut oil, green tea and hyaluronic acid, so it doesn't dry out older skin. There are no sulfates, no parabens and no heavy synthetic fragrance. That made sense to Marjorie. She'd had enough of covering things up.

How Marjorie used it

Katie told her the thing that matters most in this whole story: where you wash, and how long. That oil collects in five spots, and the tannin needs time on the skin to grab it. Marjorie had spent her whole life soaping her arms and legs and rinsing right off.

1. The back of the neck
2. Behind the ears
3. The chest
4. The upper back
5. The hairline

Lather those five spots. Leave the lather on for about half a minute. Then rinse. Do it every day, and give it 30 days for the full effect.

What I saw from two seats down

1. The first week. Nothing she could smell herself, of course. But her grandson hugged her at the door with both arms.
2. About two weeks in. She came back to the Wednesday potluck for the first time since fall and brought the pound cake. It was gone in ten minutes.
3. About a month in. The soprano from the other end of the riser moved her folder back to the spot beside Marjorie. Nobody said a word about it.

On the first Sunday in June, Warren asked Marjorie to come back to the front row. "We're a little thin up front," he said. Last week he asked her to sing "O Holy Night" again this Christmas Eve.

Then the robe room started talking

Word gets around a choir faster than the church bulletin. One by one, women started asking Marjorie, quietly, what she was using. Three of us in the altos ordered a bar. I'm one of them. My husband never said a thing, but he quit cracking the car window on the way to church. That was enough for me.

Six reasons Marjorie won't go back to plain soap

Still not convinced?

Neither was Marjorie. She had tried everything. That's why this part matters. The company puts it this way, word for word:

If someone you love has moved to the back row of something, or if you have, it isn't about being clean. It's an oil your soap can't reach, and a nose that quit telling you about it.