Words by Valerie Aitova
Some stories are passed down in words. Others linger in the air, like the scent of cardamom warming in the kitchen, incense curling through a Gambian courtyard, or wet earth after Swedish rain. These are the kinds of smells that shaped Maya Njie, founder of the eponymous fragrance house, for whom memory has always arrived through the senses. Her perfumes aren’t just products: they’re time machines, emotional heirlooms, and cultural bridges.
“I often start with a photograph,” she says. “It holds an inner visual and atmosphere of the past. Sometimes the output is literal, sometimes abstract – I let the feeling behind the image guide the formula.”
That feeling becomes her blueprint. She blends scent into memory, memory into ritual, and ritual into story — one often rooted in her own layered heritage.
Born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Gambian father, now based in London, Njie’s practice lives in the spaces between identities and geographies.
“My Scandinavian upbringing brings clarity, stillness, and simplicity,” she explains. “While Gambia adds warmth, depth, and smokiness… London is where I found my creative voice.”
The result is a scent language that resists traditional classification. Her fragrances are minimal but emotionally expansive – neither strictly feminine nor masculine, neither nostalgic nor modern, but something in between.
“When I create, I lead with emotion and place,” she says. “To me scent doesn’t have a gender.”
Her collection reflects that same openness; it’s made to be worn without rules, shaped by the stories and moods of whoever puts it on. It speaks to a wider shift in the fragrance world, especially among Gen Z and younger millennials, where scent isn’t about fixed gender lines anymore. It’s more personal now, more about identity, feeling, memory. More indie perfume houses are moving away from the old “for him” or “for her” labels and leaning into something softer, more emotional. In Maya’s world, scent has no gender. It’s something you feel. Something you choose.
That instinctive creativity started long before she ever set foot in a lab. Maya remembers the quiet rituals of childhood: wool gloves drying on the radiator, the smell of roasted peanuts, the first time she got to pick out her own fabric softener. Small moments, maybe — but they stuck. They gave her an early sense of control over her space, of choosing how the world around her felt. Even then, scent was a way of making something her own, something personal, emotional, and deeply felt.
Now, her process is similarly instinctive. She begins with a visual or a feeling: a photograph, a colour, a mood, and builds a palette of notes that respond to it.
“I blend oils, layer them, wear them, live with them,” she explains.
“Once I feel the connection – that moment when the scent resonates emotionally – I refine it further.”
Her fragrances are less about top, heart, and base notes and more about emotional cadence: the way a scent hums on the skin, the memory it pulls forward, the place it takes you.
Vanilj, one of her most beloved scents, is an ode to Swedish nostalgia: clean, intimate, and quietly enveloping.
Les Fleurs, named after the Minnie Riperton track, captures the joy of spring’s liminal magic: green, floral, tender with promise.
Others, like Tobak or Tropica, draw from deeper archival textures, invoking everything from vintage jazz to tropical heat.
But always, the aim is the same: to create something emotionally legible.
Each bottle is an emotional portal — designed not only to preserve Maya’s memories, but to invite the wearer’s own.
Maya’s personal approach puts her at the heart of a growing wave of independent perfumers: ones who put identity, memory, and culture ahead of traditional ideas of luxury. In a space so often shaped by fantasy and faceless opulence, her work feels like something else entirely: more honest, more rooted, more intimate.
“Legacy is creating something based on where you come from that exists in the future,” she says.
Her compositions aren’t about recreating the past — they’re about carrying it forward.
Njie’s story, too, speaks to that evolving legacy. As a self-taught perfumer and woman of colour in a historically exclusionary field, her presence alone shifts the narrative. But she’s not here to simply take up space — she’s reshaping it.
Like many independent perfumers working today, Njie isn’t just making scents — she’s crafting cultural narratives, offering an alternative to the faceless luxury that has long dominated the industry.
“My work is about sharing honest, culturally layered stories,” she says. “I hope it widens the lens of what perfumery can be.”
And if her career so far is any indication, it’s already doing that.
That ethos extends far beyond product. Njie has spoken openly about the use of fragrance in care work, particularly for those living with memory loss. She’s interested in how scent can serve as an emotional anchor.
“Scent has a powerful way of unlocking memory – often before language or cognition,” she says. “It’s a way to spark connection and joy.”
In recent years, perfumery has increasingly become a space where memory, identity, and sensory storytelling intersect – from museum olfactory installations to niche fragrance houses creating scent autobiographies. Maya’s work resonates within this shift, offering a deeply personal and culturally specific take on scent as an archive. She’s worked with care homes to explore how fragrance might support those with dementia – another example of how she treats scent not just as adornment, but as a relational tool.
Her next fragrance will go even deeper into her roots, drawing inspiration from Thiouraye – a traditional Gambian incense made from Gowe seeds. The project will also support The Gambia Academy, an educational initiative close to Njie’s heart.
“It’s a way of giving back,” she says. “But also deepening the story I’ve been telling through my work from the beginning.”
That story isn’t about perfection. It’s about process, layering, and continuation. Njie’s fragrances remind us that heritage doesn’t always arrive in neat packages; sometimes it lingers in the air, slips into the skin, and stays with us in unexpected ways.
At home, Njie continues to use scent as a kind of daily compass. She burns incense, lights candles, and diffuses raw materials she’s curious about — “a way of easing into new profiles in a spatial setting.”
Her comforts remain cross-cultural: Swedish fish pie, Gambian Domoda, the stillness of Nordic lakes, the light-filled Shoreditch studio where she blends, mixes, and tests.
These are her rituals. Her roots. Her inheritance.
Fragrance, for Maya Njie, is never just something you wear. It’s something you carry. Something you remember. Something you pass on.
