Ex Nihilo — Love Shot
Essence
Love Shot is a modern fruitchouli built around the tension between juicy raspberry and a dry patchouli, vetiver, and leather base. It looks back to French chypres while cleaning their structure up with contemporary musk and a polished luxury-car leather effect.
Scent Profile
The opening combines bergamot, pink berries, peony and raspberry in a bright floral-fruit flash. It can feel almost metallic or classically Chanel-like, with the berries keeping the entry lively rather than jammy. Patchouli takes control at the heart. It is earthy and slightly gritty around jasmine, while raspberry remains a playful counterpoint. This is the part that earns the chypre description: the fruit is never allowed to become a simple sweet perfume. Vetiver brings smoke and dryness to the finish. Leather is refined rather than animalic, often compared to a new car or expensive handbag; musk and vanilla soften its edges. Bergamot, peony, and vanilla may be less distinct on skin, but raspberry, patchouli, and leather remain the signature trio.
Performance
Performance varies, but the general picture is good persistence with moderate sillage. Some experience an extended patchouli-leather wear, while others find a much shorter result. It is not usually a room-filling scent, and the potentially heavy base makes measured application more useful than overspraying.
Wearing Context
Love Shot is most persuasive in fall and winter, when its smoky patchouli and leather have room to breathe. It can work in the office with restraint and gains a compelling edge for a date or evening out. The style is feminine-leaning, elegant, and mature, but its chypre-leather structure makes it viable for anyone who enjoys that traditional register.
Comparisons & DNA
Vintage Chanel provides the clearest opening reference, while YSL Paris and Miss Dior indicate its retro French floral-chypre mood. Coco Mademoiselle is a useful fruitchouli touchstone, though Love Shot is drier, smokier, and more leathery. Bottega Veneta supplies a leather-chypre comparison, but Love Shot is brighter and more raspberry-led. Nina Ricci Deci Dela points to its period floral character. Against a true vintage chypre, it is cleaner and more fruit-forward; against a conventional modern fruitchouli, it is more serious and earthy.
Reception
Love Shot draws praise as one of the more distinctive releases in its collection, with admirers valuing its sophisticated raspberry-leather-patchouli contrast. Detractors experience a heavy or dated patchouli, or a candy-like floral musk effect on the wrong skin. Its value is strongest for people who want a deliberately retro chypre mood rather than an easy sweet fruit scent. Sampling is important because the perfume changes markedly with skin chemistry.
Versions & Reformulation
Love Shot is a single known composition with no documented reformulation. It belongs to the Les Interdites collection.
Acquisition Notes
It is positioned in the luxury-niche tier and has been sold in 50 and 100 ml formats. A sample or decant is the safest way to test its patchouli weight and leather effect. Counterfeiting is not a prominent issue for this relatively low-volume release.
Notable Facts & Lore
- Love Shot launched in 2016 as a pre-Valentine’s release.
- It is part of the Les Interdites collection.
- Its key accord is raspberry, patchouli, and refined leather.
- The composition deliberately revisits the mood of late twentieth-century French chypres.