I love perfume [1], but I haven't worn it in almost two years. First, I was pregnant and just about any scent was headache-inducing. Then, I was on maternity leave and could barely muster the energy to apply concealer under my tired eyes — perfume [2] was the last thing on my mind. I never got back in the habit of wearing it, and then COVID happened, and here we are: almost two years later and fragrance-free.
As things have started to reopen, I've been dipping my unpedicured toe back into beauty rituals and products I haven't used in a while. And when I heard about Maya perfume oil [3], it seemed like the ideal formula for getting back into perfume. The premise is that it smells totally different on everyone, and when you wear it you have a signature scent no one can copy. Sounds awesome, but I was sceptical. Most perfumes smell a little different on different people anyway.
"The pH of a person's skin, or the level of acidity it contains, tends to contribute to the wear of a fragrance," explained Olivier Gillotin, vice president of Givaudan New York. Even what you had for lunch the day before could alter your chemistry enough to change how a perfume smells, he said.
Maya takes this concept to the extreme. Founder Alana Shlenker worked with a perfumer to develop the Maya Base [4] ($72) so that it totally transforms according to your pH and environment. And it works. The way it smells in the bottle (clean with maybe a hint of gardenia) is nothing like how it smells on my skin: warm and musky and vaguely like vanilla bean.
But here's what really sold me on Maya: a little rubbed off on my 1-year-old son, completely by accident, and it made him smell like a newborn. Now, if you've ever smelled a newborn, you know how special that scent is. It's intoxicating — the best smell in the world to a mom and, well, most humans. I'm trying to refrain from dousing my child in this perfume, but I may "accidentally" get a little on him from time to time. And I know you can't blame me for that.
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