Matches are impractical.
They break.
They get damp.
They go out before completing the task — yet still manage to reliably burn your fingers.
A lighter is objectively much more practical.
But also significantly less stylish.
Nothing spells coziness and gravitas as convincingly as a match.
The opening of the box.
The quiet, rasping scratch across the sandpaper.
The brief smell of sulfur that instantly makes a room feel calmer, even though, technically, someone just created an open flame.
A lighter reliably produces a flame.
A match, however, produces a moment.
It demands a brief, conscious moment.
A sound.
A controlled movement.
And the quiet certainty that you don't have forever.
Matches force a form of attention that has largely been lost to modern objects. You use them consciously. Slower. With a small amount of respect. Probably also because open flames are poor negotiators.
Matches seem cultivated.
Not despite their clumsiness.
But because of it.
They belong in the same category of things as heavy glass, slow jazz music, and people who know more about whiskey than is socially necessary. Things that are rarely efficient — but astonishingly good at creating atmosphere.
The fact that Sweden, of all places, significantly advanced modern safety matches seems almost logical in hindsight. Few other countries have as much experience in making potential dangers appear both functional and pleasantly controllable. Later, they also invented the three-point seatbelt — essentially the same basic idea, just for higher speeds.
Early chemical matches were much less relaxed in daily life. They occasionally ignited spontaneously or slowly poisoned their owners with phosphorus. Today's version, in contrast, seems remarkably cooperative.
And yet, matches still carry a small residue of unpredictability.
Perhaps that is precisely their charm. In this controlled form of risk that makes people light candles, even though electric light would objectively have been the more stable decision.
In the 20th century, a distinct collector's culture actually developed around matchboxes. Not decoratively alongside scented candles, but systematically. Sorted by origin, wood type, printing, or striking surface. Some collections comprise several hundred thousand specimens.
That may seem slightly eccentric at first.
On the other hand, there are also people with model trains and LinkedIn Premium.
With a match, you instantly feel a little more grown-up. Like someone who doesn't just turn on candles, but lights them. Someone with an opinion on olive wood. Or peat smoke.
There are objects that exist solely to solve a problem as efficiently as possible.
Matches are obviously not among them.
They exist for something much more important:
for mood, ritual, and the pleasantly superfluous beauty of a brief moment.
And that's why they remain. Even though they could have been replaced long ago.
Or perhaps precisely because of it.
— Nina Heim
Observations on objects, everyday life, and professional aesthetics.