No, I hadn’t heard of Maya Njie either before this perfume landed through my letterbox thanks to a now sadly extinct perfume subscription service. Maya Njie Les Fleurs is the kind of floral you seek when you’re tired of vanilla and pear and caramel creeping into every permutation of mainstream perfume, or so it feels like to me sometimes.

Sometimes I just want to smell like a garden full of flowers, but such a lofty wish involves much digging around these days. In addition to this, like Maya, I too was a child of the seventies and I still have a deep seated nostalgia for that play-outside-all-day era. Maya illustrates her inspiration in beautiful visuals, some of which I have borrowed from the website for this review.

So what does Les Fleurs smell like? It really kept me interested from the day it arrived having shown me several of its beautiful facets. Firstly, it’s a bright, pure spring-like floral. It bursts with petals, blossom and fresh air. On the Maya Njie site the keynotes are described as “Bergamot, neroli, pulpy fig, citrusy magnolia, floral musk, unwilted wood.” Apart from not knowing what unwilted wood is (silver birch from her Swedish heritage perhaps?), this is an accurate description of what’s in the bottle. The magnolia is especially welcome, as is the neroli.

About that pulpy fig: yes it’s definitely there and really centres the flowers around it, with that milky, somewhat overripe fig note lasting for many hours. When it finally lifts a little, you’re left with beautiful traces of a gentle floral musk the next morning, the fig note having finally drifted away as you sleep.

As you may have gathered, I’m a big fan of this one and really pleased to stumble upon this new exciting perfumer, (well, new to me, Maya has been making perfume since 2016). You don’t have to break the bank to try this, there’s a discovery set and a 7.5ml travel spray so that you can hopefully afford both perfume and the monthly bills.

Where to buy it

You can buy Maya Njie perfumes from the website or from these other stockists around the world. You can buy a 7.5ml travel size spray of Les Fleurs for £30.

Disclosure

I have no affiliation with Maya Njie. apart from being a fan. Opinions are my own.