EX NIHILO | Three Perspectives, a New Fragrance Experience

We wanted to start from nothing and create the brand of our dreams with inspiration from every field.

Benoît Verdier

EX NIHILO was founded in Paris in 2013 by three people whose experience spanned marketing, finance and engineering. Their different careers became resources for a shared project, connecting perfumes entrusted to perfumers with an in-store experience of personalisation.

Contents

At a glance
The founders and the beginnings of the maison
The brand’s approach
References

At a glance

Founded: 2013
Co-founders: Benoît Verdier, Olivier Royère and Sylvie Loday
Home: Paris, France
Focus: Perfume, body care and home fragrance
Website: EX NIHILO

The founders and the beginnings of the maison

A student friendship followed by different careers

Verdier grew up between the mountains and sea of Provence. On his first day at Sciences Po in Paris, he met Royère, a striking student in red trousers. They shared a sense that they would create something together one day, but first went on to gain experience in separate careers.

Royère’s grandfather had worked in luxury and his father was a diplomat. Passionate about fragrance, Royère interned at L’Oréal before developing a career in finance. Verdier consulted on marketing for brands in beauty and fragrance. Their friendship acquired the practical experience needed to build a business and a brand.

Loday’s route from space research to the fragrance industry

Loday trained in aeronautical engineering. For her thesis at MIT, she worked with NASA on a system for the International Space Station, testing in microgravity through parabolic flights.

She subsequently worked for McKinsey in the United States and Paris. An assignment on Givaudan’s integration of Quest drew her into the fragrance industry. She joined Givaudan’s internal strategy team and later moved into business development and client relationships. Another project brought her into contact with Verdier and Royère. The relationships she had built also helped the emerging house gain access to perfumers and materials.

Science and instincts are not opposites, they complement each other.

Sylvie Loday

Technical understanding and intuitive choices sit alongside one another. That outlook also informs the Osmologue personalisation system she envisaged.

Starting from a blank page with a shop of their own

The three left their respective jobs and began the company in 2013. The Latin name EX NIHILO means “from nothing”. They chose to build a new maison around their own ideas rather than inherit an older company’s narrative.

The Rue Saint-Honoré flagship gave that intention a physical setting. Taking on an expensive shop was a risk, but it provided a place to communicate the fragrances’ world and a personalisation service together.

According to Loday, as of 2026 she leads strategy across product vision, innovation and retail expansion. Verdier concentrates on creativity and relationships with the brand’s communities, while Royère drives its finances and business structure. Major decisions remain shared. Their earlier careers continue to shape different responsibilities.

The brand’s approach

Preparing a name and images before handing over to a perfumer

None of the three founders is a perfumer. Verdier describes collecting words and using a name to establish a creation’s tone. His interest in design and architecture of the 1970s and 1980s supplies part of that inspiration.

We always have the name before we have the final perfume.

Benoît Verdier

A mood board follows, together with a narrative written like a theatrical script. The perfumer’s work begins from there. The founders communicate an intended world while giving its olfactory interpreter creative freedom and few constraints on material costs. Working with natural ingredients and contemporary fragrance materials belongs to that freedom.

Fleur Narcotique: the decision to preserve a perfume’s character

Fleur Narcotique is an early creation by Quentin Bisch. Verdier connected its rapid development with their enthusiasm for the result:

We barely touched the formula because we just loved the result.

Benoît Verdier

The current Eau de Parfum moves from bergamot, lychee and peach into orange blossom, jasmine and Petalia. Musks and transparent woods support the floral and fruity structure.

As part of Initiale, a collection that gives perfumers freedom to reinterpret materials, it offers a way to look at the connection between bright flowers and fruit, woods and musks. Creative freedom also involves a decision on the commissioning side: how much of a perfumer’s proposal to preserve.

Osmologue: moving from a finished perfume towards personal preference

The Osmologue is a precision blending system used to personalise fragrance through conversation. Perfumers prepare variations that work with the original composition, from which a customer can explore a preferred direction. The current service offers three selected directions for each participating perfume in the Initiale and Babylone collections.

Once a variation is chosen, it is blended in store, with specialists weighing, filtering, bottling and finishing the creation. Offered face to face at selected locations, the service cannot be ordered online. Choosing a finished perfume opens into a further conversation about which of its facets to bring closer to the wearer.

Blue Talisman: from a jewel’s light to new facets of a perfume

Blue Talisman was created with Jordi Fernández for the house’s tenth anniversary in 2023. It connects nearby Place Vendôme with the idea of a jewel and a lucky charm for the skin. It belongs to Visionnaire, a creative space for fragrance lovers and collectors.

The Eau de Parfum sets juicy pear against musks and Ambrofix. Orange blossom, Georgywood and Akigalawood also appear in the official notes. A subject drawn from fruit meets named contemporary fragrance materials, combining brightness with abstract depth.

The Extrait de Parfum, introduced in 2025, was reworked with the same perfumer over approximately eight months. Floral facets gain fullness, while sandalwood and vanilla extend its softness. Discussing the project, Verdier resisted treating concentration alone as a measure of value:

I don’t think that high concentrations are necessarily more relevant or higher quality.

Benoît Verdier

The aim was to reveal other facets of the original. The light of pear and musks, or fuller flowers and creamy woods, offer different points of interest within the shared name.

Subjects that extend into emotion, nature, architecture and reinterpretation

Interdite explores forbidden pleasures and sensuality through fragrances such as Lust in Paradise. Iconoclaste invokes free spirits and includes Fernández’s The Hedonist. Inspired by untamed landscapes, it brings together ginger, cedarwood and Akigalawood among its materials.

In Babylone, where Eastern and Western inspirations meet, Gaël Montero’s Chandigarh Express takes the Indian city and its modernist architectural ambition as its subject. The founders’ interest in architecture and design becomes the imagined setting of a perfume.

Quintessence reinterprets established creations as Extraits. For Gold Immortals, Fernández revisited his Eau de Parfum’s combination of pear, ylang-ylang, Petalia and Ambrofix, among other materials, bringing vanilla and amber facets forward in the Extrait. Personalisation and reinterpretation both explore further possibilities within a finished work.