Best Ex Nihilo Perfumes: A Guide to Where to Start

The iris arrives cold, all root and powder. Rose of May follows, honeyed and green at the stem, then orange blossom, warm and faintly soapy. A consultant holds each one out in turn. At 326 rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, in a room of wood, marble and the house's signature 293 Blue, the client chooses a perfume and one material to push it further. A machine clad in polished brass, like one of the stills of old perfumery, weighs and blends the two in minutes, in full view. The brass is costume. The machine is the Osmologue, and the idea inside it came from an engineer and astronautics graduate of MIT.

Ex Nihilo's best-known perfume is Fleur Narcotique by Quentin Bisch, and it is the one to smell first: co-founder Sylvie Loday recommends it to anyone new to the house. The best rated of the seven Ex Nihilo perfumes compared in this guide is Brompton Immortals Extrait, a Harrods exclusive by Jordi Fernández, first on both Fragrantica and Parfumo at the time of writing. Ex Nihilo is a niche Paris perfume house founded in 2013 by Loday, Olivier Royère and Benoît Verdier. Six of those seven perfumes are extraits of an earlier eau de parfum, so the version matters as much as the name.

The ski trip behind Ex Nihilo

Before perfume, Sylvie Loday's subject was the environmental impact of human life aboard the International Space Station, research she did with NASA. Perfume came later, at Givaudan.

She met Olivier Royère, a former banker, and Benoît Verdier on a skiing trip in France. The two men had studied together and had long wanted a company of their own. At the start the company was those three, one production person and one design trainee. Verdier reads the Latin name literally: out of nothing.

The first boutique opened on 12 December 2013 at 352 rue Saint-Honoré, shop and workshop at once, designed by Christophe Pillet in blue marble and gold-coloured steel.

The Osmologue only edits

Loday developed the concept of the Osmologue, named after osmology, the ancient Greek science of scents. The machine adjusts an existing Ex Nihilo perfume rather than building a bespoke one, and the house's perfumers validate the combinations. For a house named out of nothing, it starts from something: in 2015 each perfume's composer had chosen three optional ingredients that could go in without upsetting its balance.

The perfumes follow the same habit. Five of the six extraits in this guide belong to Quintessence, the collection of extraits of the house's iconic fragrances, and each of the five changed its note list on the way. An extrait at this house is a second draft.

Fleur Narcotique comes first

Verdier credits the house's early commercial success to two things, the Osmologue and Fleur Narcotique. Asked in June 2026 where a newcomer should begin, Loday said she will "always point them to Fleur Narcotique." She named the perfume rather than a version, and the version here is the extrait.

Ex Nihilo Fleur Narcotique Extrait is a dense floral by Quentin Bisch, the 2022 extrait of his 2014 eau de parfum. Lychee and bergamot open onto a crowded heart of jasmine and orange blossom. The rewrite swapped the original's peach for osmanthus, added freesia, loaded the heart with an overdose of blooming ingredients and put oakmoss and sandalwood where transparent wood and moss had been. Bisch came to perfume from the theatre, after six years directing a troupe, and the composition plays to the back row.

Brompton Immortals, a tribute to Harrods

Harrods came about ten months after the first shop. In October 2014 the store opened its Salon de Parfums on the sixth floor, and Ex Nihilo was one of the eleven brands with a boutique of its own inside, its first point of sale outside France.

Brompton Immortals followed in June 2018, sold exclusively at Harrods. Jordi Fernández built it around the Egyptian legend of immortality for a store on Brompton Road. Harrods, as it happens, has an Egyptian-style department.

Ex Nihilo Brompton Immortals is the original 2018 eau de parfum, a spiced rose in a stone chamber with the incense still going. Saffron and pink pepper come first, then Bulgarian rose, jasmine absolute and lisylang, a ylang note, and olibanum smokes through the vanilla, white musk and patchouli below.

Ex Nihilo Brompton Immortals Extrait arrived in 2023 from the same perfumer, Jordi Fernández, and it is the one extrait here that kept its list: Harrods prints the same notes for both versions, so on paper the difference is the concentration. Wearers find the eau de parfum sweeter and airier, and report more depth and spice here, with a muskier drydown, though the view is not unanimous.

Loday says it has been a bestseller for the Harrods perfume department as a whole. At the time of writing it is first of the seven on both Fragrantica and Parfumo, on a few hundred votes each.

Six of seven by Jordi Fernández

Ex Nihilo has no single house perfumer. It gives outside perfumers a carte blanche: seven different signatures on the 2015 range, 16 master perfumers in 2022. The seven perfumes in this guide carry two signatures, and six of the seven are Jordi Fernández's.

Ex Nihilo Blue Talisman Extrait, pear and white flowers on vanilla and sandalwood, is the 2025 extrait of Blue Talisman, which Fernández made in 2023 for the tenth anniversary. The eau de parfum was one of the house's bestsellers in 2025, and both versions fronted the Ex Nihilo installation at Le Bon Marché in Paris in the autumn of 2026.

Ex Nihilo Gold Immortals Extrait is a sweet floral, pear and bergamot running into ylang-ylang, then tonka bean and vanilla, a pairing none of the other six has in its base. It shares a perfumer and the theme of immortality with Brompton Immortals. Fernández made it in 2023 from his eau de parfum of 2020, and on paper the rewrite was the smallest of the five: vanilla replaced musk in the base.

Ex Nihilo The Hedonist Extrait is a citrus and woods perfume about black stones and extreme temperatures, whatever the name promises. Fernández made the eau de parfum in 2021 and the extrait in 2024, adding lychee and grapefruit up top and overdosing the textured woods, so ginger and citrus run down into cedarwood, vetiver and patchouli. It ranks second of the seven on both Fragrantica and Parfumo. In 2022, two years before that extrait existed, Verdier named The Hedonist and Outcast Blue as his personal favourites.

Ex Nihilo Outcast Blue Extrait is the only agarwood and tobacco perfume of the seven, the 2022 extrait of Fernández's 2019 eau de parfum about young artists in revolt. Black pepper and saffron burn off around a single cold note of lily of the valley, and then the base takes over: agarwood, tobacco, vetiver, sandalwood and oakmoss. For the extrait he strengthened that base with a powerful agarwood note and dropped the pink pepper, cedarwood and patchouli.

The seven side by side

The table holds what is carried here, so Lust in Paradise, one of the house's bestsellers since launch, is missing from it.

From 352 to 326

The company that began with one production person and a design trainee had reached 100 million euros in retail sales by early 2026, when L Catterton replaced Eurazeo as its minority investor.

That year the house also left its first address. The new flagship at 326 rue Saint-Honoré, a few steps along, runs to 124 square metres on two floors, conceived more like a private apartment than a shop, with a salon upstairs by appointment. The full range stands on the bright ground floor. It still includes Cologne 352, Jacques Huclier's olfactory signature of the rue Saint-Honoré address, the one 352 that made the move.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best Ex Nihilo perfume?

The best Ex Nihilo perfume is Fleur Narcotique by reputation, and the best rated of the seven Ex Nihilo perfumes compared in this guide is Brompton Immortals Extrait. Co-founder Sylvie Loday said in June 2026, "If someone has never tried Ex Nihilo, I always point them to Fleur Narcotique," and she calls Brompton Immortals Extrait a bestseller across the Harrods perfume department. At the time of writing the Fleur Narcotique eau de parfum has more than 8,000 votes on Fragrantica, and Brompton Immortals Extrait ranks first of those seven on both Fragrantica and Parfumo, on a few hundred votes each.

What does Ex Nihilo Brompton Immortals smell like?

Ex Nihilo Brompton Immortals smells of spiced rose: saffron and pink pepper at the top, Bulgarian rose, jasmine absolute and lisylang in the heart, and vanilla, white musk, olibanum and patchouli in the base. Jordi Fernández created it in 2018 as a tribute to Harrods, around the Egyptian legend of immortality, and both versions are Harrods exclusives.

What is the difference between Brompton Immortals and Brompton Immortals Extrait?

Brompton Immortals is the 2018 eau de parfum and Brompton Immortals Extrait is the 2023 extrait, both by Jordi Fernández, and Harrods lists the same notes for each. On paper the difference is the concentration: wearers report the extrait as deeper and spicier, and community ratings put it at 8 to 10 hours against 6 to 8 hours for the eau de parfum. Fragrantica and Parfumo both score the extrait higher at the time of writing.

What is the Ex Nihilo Osmologue?

The Osmologue is a high-precision blending machine, developed from a concept by Ex Nihilo co-founder Sylvie Loday, that personalises an existing Ex Nihilo perfume at selected boutiques. The client smells pure materials, chooses a perfume and an ingredient to boost it, and the machine weighs and blends the result in minutes. The Osmologue adjusts a finished perfume rather than building a bespoke one, and each result comes with a numbered, signed certificate.

Who owns Ex Nihilo?

Ex Nihilo is held by its founders and management alongside a minority investor, L Catterton, which replaced Eurazeo in a sale completed in February 2026. L Catterton is a private equity firm created by LVMH, Groupe Arnault and Catterton, and the size of its stake has not been published. Eurazeo had taken its stake in January 2024 and sold it at about 2.7 times its investment.