![\"Maya](\"https:\/\/www.7scents.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Maya-Njie-Aethi-Opum-inspiration-300x300.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMaya Njie\u2019s Aethi Opum (Eau de Parfum) won the Best Perfume Prize at the Art and Olfaction Awards in 2026!<\/p>\n
Aethi Opum is a fragrant meditation on perseverance, ancestral stories, and rebirth, inspired by the Borassus aethiopum palm trees of The Gambia. Like ancient guardians, these monumental trees tower over the landscape, measuring the passage of time, and bear witness with the same quiet dignity to rain, drought, endings, and beginnings. The fragrance captures the tense silence following a tropical thunderstorm, when damp stone and dark earth begin to radiate their warmth under the sun\u2019s renewed glow. Primordial yet deeply human: the scent of a landscape permeated not only by soil and vegetation, but also by coffee, leather, and thiouraye incense, carrying within it traces of rituals, family life, and inherited memories.<\/p>\n
Maya Njie Aethi Opum opens with the cool, mineral darkness of rain-soaked earth, pierced by vibrant black pepper. The Aidani fruit introduces an unfamiliar, spicy sweetness \u2014 warm, aromatic, and slightly smoky \u2014 while vanilla gradually softens the earthiness without becoming sweet.<\/p>\n
As the fragrance warms, the coffee reveals itself with extraordinary clarity \u2014 roasted and shadowed \u2014 against a backdrop of dry papyrus and root-like vetiver. Thiouraye incense winds its way through the composition, richer and more intimate than festive smoke, joined by the resinous radiance of frankincense. Iris and suede smooth out the rougher textures, lending a muted powderiness and evoking the sensation of smoothing out a fabric worn by time with a gentle touch.<\/p>\n
In the drydown of Aethi Opum, leather, vetiver, and papyrus form a dark, quietly elegant base. Vanilla shines within it like late-afternoon sunlight on stone, leaving behind an earthy, smoky, and contemplative scent trail: mysterious and full of life.<\/p>\n
Main ingredients: Black Pepper, Wet Earth, Aidan Fruit, Thiouraye incense (Churai) Vetiver, Papyrus, Coffee, Iris, Suede, Frankincense, Vanilla, Leather<\/p>\n
Photographic inspiration: The Borassus Aethiopum palm trees stand as tall, proud measures of time, quietly observing each ending cycle and its renewal. Gambia 2022<\/p>\n