Kilian Paris · Love, don’t be shy · The Narcotics
Kilian Love, Don’t Be Shy notes
Reviewed by Lucy Grant, co-owner and fragrance reviewer — 15 September 2026
What notes are in Kilian Love, Don't Be Shy?
Kilian names three main notes for Love, Don't Be Shy: neroli, rose and marshmallow. The full pyramid runs neroli on top, rose and honeysuckle at the heart, marshmallow and cistus labdanum at the base.
- Straight from Kilian. The list above is the house's own product page, not a fan database.
- Orange blossom is in the story, not the list. Kilian's description opens with orange blossom absolute.
- Calice Becker composed it. Kilian Hennessy calls it the first scent he created for the house.
- Five sizes. Kilian sells it as a perfume in 7.5, 30, 50, 100 and 250ml.
Own it? See how often you really reach for it with Sentia.
The pyramid
Three tiers, five notes, as Kilian lists them
- TopThe first minutes1/3
- Neroli
- HeartOnce it settles2/3
- Rose
- Honeysuckle
- BaseWhat is left hours later3/3
- Marshmallow
- Cistus Labdanum
- Citrus1
- Floral1
- Resin & amber1
- Sweet1
Transcribed from Kilian’s own product page, 15 September 2026.
The story and the list
Why the description and the note list do not quite match
Kilian publishes two things on the same page. One is a short story: the fragrance opens with orange blossom absolute, honeysuckle and rose arrive, a marshmallow sugar accord sweetens them, and a warm amber base sits underneath. The other is the formal list of notes. They overlap, but they are not the same.
Named in the description
- Orange blossom absolute
- Honeysuckle
- Rose
- Marshmallow sugar accord
- Warm amber base
Kilian’s own prose, in the order it names things.
Named in the note list
- Neroli
- Rose
- Honeysuckle
- Marshmallow
- Cistus Labdanum
The pyramid on this page, transcribed from the same product page.
The gap is mostly vocabulary. Neroli and orange blossom absolute come from the same flower — the blossom of the bitter orange tree. Neroli is the distilled oil; the absolute is extracted with solvents and smells heavier and more honeyed. Kilian writes “orange blossom” in the story and “neroli” in the list, and both are true of the same material. The “warm amber base” of the story is the cistus labdanum of the list: labdanum is the resin that gives most amber accords their warmth. Marshmallow appears in both, and it is the note everyone remembers.
When the two disagree, this page follows the list, because a list can be checked and a story cannot.
Not a gourmand, says the house
Reviews file Love, Don’t Be Shy under gourmands, and the marshmallow makes that reasonable. Kilian files it under The Narcotics, its collection of heady flowers, and on the collection page Kilian Hennessy describes it as the first scent he created for the house — a gourmand built, in his words, to avoid the ethyl maltol and patchouli pairing that most gourmands lean on. Ethyl maltol is the molecule behind the burnt-sugar, candy-floss smell of many sweet perfumes. Kilian says this one was composed without it, which is why the sweetness here reads as marshmallow and honeysuckle rather than caramel.
Three versions
Original, Extrême, Eau Fraîche
Kilian sells three fragrances under this name, and each tile on its site carries a different set of main notes. If you are trying to match a bottle you smelled on someone, the version matters:
- Love, Don't Be ShyNeroli, Rose, Marshmallow
- Love, Don't Be Shy ExtrêmeOrange Blossom, Rose, Marshmallow
- Love, Don't Be Shy Eau FraîcheNeroli, Rose, Musk
The original is the one on this page. Kilian sells it in 7.5, 30, 50, 100 and 250ml; the 250ml is a carafe meant to refill the others.
The question you probably came with
What perfume does Rihanna wear?
Honestly: nobody outside her circle knows for certain, and she has said so. Rihanna has never named a perfume in an interview or in a post of her own. What exists is a video from 2016, posted by a friend on Instagram, in which the friend says she is wearing a Kilian called Love — and in which she can be heard objecting that she does not tell anyone what she wears. Insider reported the video in 2023 with the word “reportedly” and noted that she has not confirmed it. Harper’s Bazaar used the same word.
So the fair version of the answer is this: Love, Don’t Be Shy is the perfume Rihanna is reported to wear, on the strength of one friend’s video and years of articles repeating it. That is not nothing, and it is not confirmation. It is also the reason the notes above are worth knowing on their own: a great many people bought this bottle to smell like someone, and what they actually bought is neroli, rose, honeysuckle, marshmallow and labdanum.
Would you actually wear it?
If you bought Love, Don’t Be Shy because of Rihanna, the useful question now is whether you wear it. Sentia answers that from the days you actually put it on, not from the reason you bought it.
The note list and the full Rihanna answer above are free to read either way.
Questions
Still wondering
- What perfume does Rihanna wear?
- Rihanna has never named a perfume in an interview or in a post of her own. The link to Kilian Love, Don't Be Shy comes from a 2016 video posted by a friend, who said she was wearing it while she objected in the background. Insider and Harper's Bazaar have since reported it as the scent she reportedly wears. It is reported, not confirmed.
- Is Love, Don't Be Shy Extrême the same fragrance?
- No. Kilian lists different main notes for each version: neroli, rose and marshmallow for the original; orange blossom, rose and marshmallow for the Extrême; neroli, rose and musk for the Eau Fraîche.
- Does Love, Don't Be Shy have vanilla in it?
- Not on Kilian's list. The house names marshmallow and cistus labdanum as the base, and describes a marshmallow sugar accord and a warm amber base. Reviews often call it a vanilla scent; the house does not.
- What does 'The Narcotics' mean?
- It is the name of the Kilian collection this fragrance belongs to. The house groups its heady white-flower and rose perfumes under it — orange blossom, tuberose, gardenia and rose — and files Love, Don't Be Shy there, not under its gourmands.
Open Love, Don’t Be Shy in Sentia’s catalogue to see Kilian’s five notes in one place and put the bottle on your shelf.