On a gently sloping hillside in the Spanish town of Pedramala, a faded Mercedes has been abandoned to nature’s elements. Beneath a thick and untamed green veil it rests, nearly invisible to the unobservant eye. Underneath the foliage, Liquorice leather interiors are sheltering from the midday sun. The balmy cypress trees shadowed by the Sierra Bernia mountains. Pedramala, Spain 2008

Ingredients: Alcohol denat, Parfum, Benzyl Benzoate, Benzyl Salicylate, Citral, Citronellol, Eugenol, Farnesol, Geraniol, Isoeugenol, Limonene, Linalool

The fragrances of Maya Njie are blended as recollections of memory; scents that seek to capture the essence and preserve the spirit of the intimate and personal. Elusive moments and subtle details, those that would otherwise have slipped from consciousness, are remembered. The tones are of a time and the accords nostalgic, yet the end products feel profoundly contemporary. Memories from Maya’s dual Scandinavian and Gambian heritage are reconstructed by way of scent.

As a self-taught perfumer, her practice was developed through experimentation; the blending of raw materials with a variety of essential oils, aroma compounds and resins; nature and science combining in autobiographical fragrances. Maya’s olfactory identity draws inspiration from her upbringing, as well as an archive of intimate family photographs from the 1960s; the small Swedish summer house surrounded by mercurial forests, the visits to her grandparents’ sparsely furnished flat on Sunday afternoons, Uncle Lars’ and Aunt Erene’s wedding. A bottling of a time, place and spirit.

Founded in 2016, Maya Njie Perfumes continues to explore the intertwining of scent and memory in high-quality artisanal perfume blends. Extracted, filtered and bottled are personal moments, through which the wearer creates their own feeling, attachment and meaning.