King Harold: You can't force someone to fall in love!
Fairy Godmother: I beg to differ. I do it all the time!
Fairy Godmother: I beg to differ. I do it all the time!
— Shrek 2
Ah, the Love Potion. Not since the screen-doored submarine was patented has there ever been such a useless invention. Not that love potions are ineffective, mind you; it's just that they rarely ever work as intended, to the point where one wonders why a character would even bother to use them at all. When you see someone employ a Love Potion these days, you almost expect it to fail. It should be a Discredited Trope by this time, but for some reason, characters continue to use Love Potions, with said potions continuing to cause far more trouble than they're worth.
If the plan for using the Love Potion is actually well thought out and shouldn't go wrong, expect some Contrived Coincidence to ensure that it does.
The Love Potion comes in three general forms:
- Love First Person Sighted potion
- Love Only Person X (often containing a hair or other piece of Person X) concoction
- Get In Touch With Your Wild Side aphrodisiac
Of course, no matter which type of potion is used, the chances that the right people will actually drink the potion are less than .00001% on average. Even if the potion is put into a drink that's placed directly into the hands of the people for whom it's intended, some kind of mix-up is always bound to occur. For instance, if the Love Potion is given to the princess in an attempt to get her to fall in love with the hero, you can bet your life savings that she'll slip and fall, causing the potion to splash up into the open mouth of the hero-hating Tsundere. When folks imbibe a "drink it and fall in love with the first thing that you see" type of potion, then despite how miraculously good they always seem to be at avoiding children or family (on the rare occasion where this sort of Fridge Horror is even addressed, that is), it is virtually guaranteed that the first face the hero will see upon sipping the mixture is that of his own horse or that of his Plucky Comic Relief Sidekick. Even if it's only an aphrodisiac, a lot more people than expected are going to unknowingly chug it and engage in activities that put the raunchiest teen parties to shame.
Villains don't usually have all that much luck with Love Potions either, as they're often all-too susceptible to being rendered ineffective through that annoyingly pesky "Power of True Love" thing. No matter how strong a Love Potion might be at first, it will almost invariably fail once the entranced heroine sees her True Love lying bleeding and battered on the floor, seconds away from doom. In most cases, this will lead to a tearful reconciliation between the heroine and their love interest and to the hero picking herself up and kicking a lot of ass (as well as to the villain wondering just where he can get a refund on that stupid wonky potion). An even more chaotic backfiring is when the villain her/himself accidentally drinks said potion.
Villains may employ other means besides potions for winning someone's love (spells, brainwashing, illusions, and the like) but these usually have a comparable success rate (i.e., none). If it's particularly potent, it might cause Love Is in the Air and affect not just the intended drinker but everyone.
Even on occasions where a love potion works exactly as intended (most often in the case of Love Only Person X), with the right target falling for the right person, the whole thing has a tendency to work a little too well and turn the love interest into a clingy obsessed stalker or even a full-on yandere. The user will find, to their chagrin, that being obsessed over to the point of absurdity either destroys what they found attractive about the love interest in the first place or is simply too much to handle and takes up all of their free time. Or they might come to realize that they'd rather their love remain unrequited than be artificially requited, thus learning a valuable Aesop.
Every once in a blue moon, you get a Shipper on Deck type who wants to use a love potion not for their own benefit, but on behalf of two people who would be "so perfect together", if only they just had a little nudge towards each other. But even the purest of intentions can lead to disaster, and it's a safe bet the would-be matchmaker will be desperately scrambling to undo their handiwork in short order.
The morality of magically forcing someone to fall in love or have sex with another is often overlooked, but occasionally explored. Use of these things has the potential to make consent rather dubious if the story goes beyond PG-rated shows of love. Indeed, with the clear parallel to date-rape drugs, it's becoming more common for a Magical Society to have declared love potions illegal.
Frequently comes as a perfume rather than a drinkable. In these cases simply replace "drinks" with "gets sprayed with", as all the same mishaps tend to happen.
See also Living Aphrodisiac when this trope is someone's superpower (often a villain unconcerned with that "consent" nonsense). Compare Slipping a Mickey, Hypno Ray and Hypno Trinket. Contrast Hate Plague. Subtrope of Magic Potion.
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Advertising
- Axe/Lynx body spray and Tag shower gel, supposedly. Prepare to be mobbed by armies of attractive members of the opposite sex wanting your bod. Far too many teenage boys hope this to be Truth in Television, and the average Western high school locker room reeks of the stuff.
- One commercial even shows women spontaneously pole-dancing around a pipe, and we pan up to a man in the shower using one of the products.
- Similarily, women showing great affection for metal items partially made from recycled cans of Axe.
- Female cops pulling over, arresting men, and then subjecting them to unreasonable search and seizure should be skyrocketing.
- In one hair commercial👁 Image
, the girl develops a… fondness for the guy's hair. - One of the weirdest was one where a bug bit a guy who'd put on Axe (who of course got some at the bar, though this isn't shown); it was eaten by a frog, who promptly got to mate with the first member of the opposite sex it encountered; the frog was taken for frog legs, eaten by an older, wealthy gentlemen; who then got laid, had a heart attack, and died; who was then eaten by worms; one of which was put in a bottle of mezcal; which upon being swallowed causes the swallower to suddenly become phenomenally attractive to some women in the bar. The circle of life continues.
- And by far the weirdest of these AXE ads is the AXE: Dark Temptation ad. The man puts on the spray and turns into a chocolate golem and as he goes to do his daily business... while all the psychotic women bite/rip off parts of his body like his nose, arm, ears and one women bites him on the ass. And he only has this terrifying grin on his face the whole time.
- An Axe Twist commercial takes it one step further. A guy sprays on the Axe and goes on a date, which he screws up so badly that he tries to play peek-a-boo with her. She shows disinterest and the guy just looks forward in a stupor, Axe to the rescue, the guy is transformed into an intellectual. The girl gives the guy a sexy look. So guys, not only will Axe make her fall in love with you, it will make her forget you were a total douche five seconds ago.
- Apparently they also make your girlfriend want to do odd things to your father👁 Image
. To be fair, TAG will make your girlfriend's mom want to do odd things👁 Image
to you.
- A '70s ad, for a cologne called "Bacchus", pretended this was the real secret of the Roman army's victories: they arranged to splash the stuff on the men of enemy towns, who were then mobbed by their own (all very beautiful) womenfolk. "Because when a man is irresistible to women, he has more interesting things to do than fight a war."
- And of course, there were the ads for Impulse, a woman's body spray. Any woman wearing the product would become irresistible because "Men Can't Help Acting On Impulse." They even played with this concept in a '90s ad, where a woman wearing Impulse fails to score with a guy she bumps into ... because she is in the middle of a gay district.
- Consider also the subtext of the ads for BOD Man fragrance spray. Wherein a youth applies the spray and proceeds to play shirtless basketball with his male compatriots, while women look on longingly from behind a chain link fence.
- Parodied by a Specsavers ad👁 Image
where legions of women run towards a man spraying himself.. and then stop dead when they see his deeply unfashionable glasses. - Parodied in this video👁 Image
, where we find out what happens to the poor men after they're mobbed by a bunch of women. - Wild Stone Perfume released a series of sensuous advertisements in India that involved women going insane at the scent of their deodorant, including one👁 Image
that had to be toned down because it was too much for some conservative audiences. - Earlier ads for Mexico-exclusive deodorant brand English Lady👁 Image
shilled it as the first and only deodorant with pheromones that stimulate men's brains and turn them👁 Image
submissive👁 Image
to any woman who wears the deodorant.
Audio Play
- Jan Tenner: In her first appearance, Big Bad Seytania casts a powerful love spell on Jan he could not break free from himself, requiring her to lift the spell instead. However, it only worked because he didn't know about it beforehand. In her next appearance, he proves to be immune against it.
Comic Books
- Alan Ford: In www.trippazza.trip, Bob Rock ends up in possession of an extremely stinky elixir which makes the user irresistible to all women, regardless of age. However, the potion is faulty and has a secondary effect: if a woman who felt the smell the first time feels it again, she doesn't feel love, but burning hatred instead.
- Aquila: Locusta the witch controls her lover Emperor Nero through a love potion that she's convinced him will boost his powers.
- Archie Comics:
- Jughead Jones has a special button he can put on his crown that makes him irresistible to women. Considering his lack of interest in romance, however, he doesn't really have any use for it.
- In one story, Dilton makes one for Betty to use on Archie. She declines using it, but because she dumped the stuff down the sink and into the town's water supply, this caused every guy in the high school to fall for her. Luckily, the water diluted its effects, meaning it would wear off.
- Black Panther: Nakia (a.k.a. Malice) uses a forbidden herb called Jufeiro to make men fall madly in love with her to the point of slavish devotion. She doesn't have too many qualms about using the herb on T'Challa, the target of her obsession, either.
- The DCU:
- Crisis on Infinite Earths: In order to get the Ax-Crazy Killer Frost to work with her archfoe Firestorm, Psycho-Pirate used his emotion powers to make her fall in love with Firestorm. By the time Firestorm has gotten used to her acting like a Clingy Jealous Girl, she's reverted back to her crazy self.
- Supergirl (1984): The witch Selena brews a love potion which will cause Ethan to fall for the first person he sees. Selena manages to trick Ethan into drinking it, but unfortunately for her, Ethan sneaks out of her den as she is busy, and he stumbles into Linda Lee.
Selena: Now he who drinks the water will fall in love with the first person he sees, as long as the spider is confined, or one day goes by!
[later]
Selena: No! NO! He looked at that little twerp and fell in love with her!
Bianca: At least it proves your love potion works! - Teen Titans: Raven's empathic powers functioned this way a couple times. Once was deliberate (she got Kid Flash to join the Titans by making him fall in love with her and then erasing his memory of it), and once was by accident (she made Nightwing have feelings for her despite being in a committed relationship with Starfire). Neither scenario ended up lasting.
- Eight Billion Genies: Daisy immediately spends her wish to try and get Brian to fall madly in love with her. Unfortunately for her and luckily for Brian, the owner of the bar they're in made his wish to shield the bar and its inhabitants from all wishes, nullifying it. Brian is horrified when he learns what she tried to do, as it would've denied his freedom to choose who he loved. Alex, who was nursing a crush on her, quickly gives up on it after learning this.
- Ironwood: As a student, Suliman Canto slipped a love potion disguised as perfume to the object of his affections. His plan backfired when she ended up having sex with her half-snake female roommate.
- Jonesy (2016): Jonesy can make people fall in love with... well, with whatever she commands. Sometimes it's people, sometimes with food or just making jackasses of themselves if they get her riled. Of course, this can end up leading to consequences that she must rectify.
- Nemesis the Warlock: Nemesis uses a spell on Torquemada to make him fall in love with Purity Brown so she can act as a spy for Nemesis. While it works at first, Torquemada's evil will is so strong that he eventually realizes what's been done to him and subconsciously manages to sic a monster on Purity.
- The Sandman: Endless Nights: When the protagonist of the story "What I've Tasted of Desire" tells a witch she doesn't believe her love potions work, the witch replies that "they don't not work," in that they give the user the confidence to make the first move instead of shyly pining away.
- Squadron Supreme: The Squadron's "Utopia Project" developed a brainwashing device to eradicate criminal tendencies. Golden Archer misused it to make Lady Lark fall in love with him. Even the knowledge that it was the product of brainwashing was unable to shake her love, and the Squadron had specifically designed it to be ineradicable. She did eventually break free, but only after Golden Archer had died.
- Tales from the Crypt: In "Loved to Death", a man uses such a potion on a woman who hates him. It works far too well; she becomes so clingy that he ends up attempting to poison her. When he himself accidentally consumes the poisoned beverage and finds himself in the afterlife, he's nonetheless relieved that he's free of her... until she herself turns up almost immediately, having committed suicide when she found him dead.
- X-Men: Nightcrawler breaks up with Amanda Sefton, a sorceress (and his adopted sister), the first time because he asks if her magic made him fall in love with her, and she can't directly say no.
- XXXenophile: One of these, accidentally administered, has unintended consequences in Phil Foglio's "Overly Familiar". Unlike many examples of this trope, the effects are apparently permanent (but more of a lust potion), but since both of them already had feelings for each other, neither one has a problem with it.
Comic Strips
- Helga tries to rekindle the love of Hägar the Horrible twice. (They've been married for years, so this is less creepy than many examples.) Once, she puts a love potion in his soup, and he immediately shouts how he loves... the soup. Another time, she puts an amulet of love under his pillow. He falls in love with the pillow.
Fan Works
- The Accidental Warlord and His Pack: One of the noblewomen seeking to become the Warlord's consort tries dumping a love potion in his dinner. As love potions are more lust potions and he as excellent control over himself his lover is very eager to hep him work it out of his system and the noblewomen is sent packing.
- Adventures of a Line Hopper: The Seventh Segment's chapter "The Setup" heavily features this (among other lampshaded "internet sex clichés") in the middle of Buffy and the Doctor's Unresolved Sexual Tension.
- Buffy and the Doctor stumble upon a mysterious place whose air turns out to be full of pheromones, because it is a place for a breeding experiment and the people responsible want everyone to reproduce as much as possible. The whole time she is there, Buffy increasingly loses her inhibition when it comes to the Doctor. The Doctor internally admits that the human pheromones are getting to him too as he keeps reciprocating Buffy's affections, but he resists it better and snaps her out of it.
- It turns out that Dawn and Donna give Buffy and the Doctor's picnic food some alien aphrodisiac to get them together already. According to Donna, it is potent enough that it once caused her to hook up with a jelly-blob-like alien. Buffy and the Doctor don't get to eat the food due to being sidetracked, but they do realize about the aphrodisiac by the end of the substory and they are not happy (Played for Laughs).
- "Change"👁 Image
(Cinderella and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas): Marina is in love with her friend Cinderella's husband. In her jealousy she pays someone to change reality so that Prince Charming loves her, not Cinderella. It's only a temporary change that quickly wears out. When Charming wakes up to Marina in his bed, he has her arrested and imprisoned. - Equestria: A History Revealed: This was used by Discord en masse to cause the downfall of the Equinus Republic, culminating in a giant orgy from the ponies in parliament. It is meant to be taken as Squick and with as much questionable validity as it sounds.
- Escape Artist👁 Image
: Played for Horror with Molly Weasley. When Bill comes to Amelia to explain what happened to Ginny, he reveals his mom is completely insane and suffers from functional insanity when Authur rejected her and fed him love potions for roughly 30 years. Amelia is horrified at this revelation. In the end, she's left untreated not because she's too insane, but also because if she was cured, she would be arrested for line theft and would likely got the Veil as punishment. - Extra Power Twin: Dumbledore gets Snape to brew one for Aiden so he can use it on Ginny. For a time, it worked until her friends and siblings catch on, break her free from it, and find out Dumbledore did it. In the end, all Aiden does is screw himself over massively.
- Harry Potter and The Acts of Betrayal: Dumbledore breaks apart Harry and Hermione by dosing them with the mancipiumdiligo potion, also known as the love slave potion, which forces the taker to be obsessively in love with one person, who takes the corresponding vincodiligo potion, also known as the love command potion. Ron and Ginny are given the command potion and they keep Harry and Hermione under its spell for nearly a year before Hermione figures it out.
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Discussed by Professor Quirrell in regards to witches using them to enchant and rape Muggle men (some wizards also do the same thing to Muggle women). It also alludes to how Voldemort was conceived, something few know about. Quirrell has been possessed by him, however...
- If Wishes Were Ponies...: In chapter 74, Sweetie Belle accidentally makes one of these (type 2) in potions class. The results are predictable.
- If You Love Ed, Let Ed Go👁 Image
: Zigzagged. The concoction that Edd created was originally meant to remove the Kankers intense love for the Eds and the give the latter some peace of mind. However, this instead leave a void in the Kankers, causing them to fall for other Cul-de-sac kids, much to their horror. - In the Bleak Midwinter (TheLoud): Despite his bad history with having been controlled by Amortentia, Tom is willing to use it, if necessary, to win back the girl whom he lost when Merope enslaved him. It doesn't quite go as he planned; it can induce obsession, but that doesn't change everything else about the person, such as her thinking that he's insane for believing in magic.
- Knowledge is Power: The Weasleys had a plot, which was apparently two years in the making, to dose Harry and Hermione with one so that they'd fall for Ginny and Ron.
- The Last Brony: Kingdom Hearts With a Black Sora: The heroes use one against Black Riku. It doesn't actually have any magical properties at all however, and only works because Sora and the others convince Riku that it does.
- Lady Archimedes: Reconstructed. As with canon, Hermione is quite displeased to learn that the Weasley Twins plan to sell love potions in their joke shop given the ethical problems, but they explain that they're deliberately developing mild versions that won't be more than pranks, just making someone compose poetry, or blush, or at the most give a single kiss and then snap out of it.
- The Last of Wizards: Molly and Albus had Arthur under a slew of loyalty and obedience potions when he's taken to St. Mungo's for a check-up, with one of them being heavily implied to be a love potion.
- Love Bites: Twilight added "liquid love" to some soup for Chrysalis' visit to Ponyville. Unfortunately, she can taste the difference between that and real love, and when other ponies drink it, it makes them act like mindless romantic zombies.
- Love Potion👁 Image
(Bleach) is all about type two attempted by Ichigo at Urahara's suggestion, which predictably goes wrong as the target doesn't eat the cookies...but everyone else does. - Love Potion Madness👁 Image
is a The Loud House fic that involves Lana using such a potion intended for Lori and falling in love with Clyde, thus teaching the latter about age gaps. - Lovesick: Baba sells love potions that make the drinker become infatuated with the first person they touch after consuming it, but it only lasts for a couple hours. Vegeta buys one to use on Goku. It's also mentioned that several of the other Z-Fighters had bought them to use on women before.
- Mischief Revived: Under Molly's guidance, Ron and Ginny sneakily used love potions on Hermione and Harry respectively, over a long period of time. The primary reason for both was so that the Weasley family could gain control of both victims' inheritances. The other main purpose was to disrupt their prophesied soulbonds with Fred and Draco, who didn't fit into Dumbledore's plans for them.
- Regaining Perspective👁 Image
centers on Cupid (appropriately enough) getting a type 1 and 3 love potion which she uses on Oliver. However, she's cautioned that if he encounters someone he genuinely loves, the drug will amplify and focus those feelings, and override the focus on whoever he sees first. The plot is set in motion by him being drugged and then encountering Laurel. The fact that he did in fact see Cupid first is a plot point. Interestingly, the morality of it is fully explored. Laurel stops things the moment she realizes he's been drugged, but is still ashamed and feels like she "took advantage". Oliver himself (once it wears off) and Roy express concern if he hurt her under the effects. Also a funny moment when Roy's glad Oliver didn't see him first:Roy: Well I dodged that bullet. No offense.
Oliver: None taken.
Felicity: Oh, that would’ve been funny. Assuming, you know, everything turned out fine. - Rosario Vampire: Brightest Darkness Act IV: Chapter 17 reveals that Ruby kept the original sample of Yukari's love-struck potion for some reason. Falla, Apoch, and Astreal mistake it for perfume and use it, and Hilarity Ensues when Moka, Luna, Yukari, and Kokoa end up dosed with it as well.
- Run Ichigo Run👁 Image
: Nemu is tasked by Mayuri to drug Ishida as revenge for attacking him and stalling an experiment, but a mistake results in Ichigo it getting hit instead. Since the drug was calibrated for Ishida, it has a different effect on Ichigo: every female he encounters falls in love with him, including lesbians and even his own sisters. Even Nemu is affected, despite the fact that she knows what's happening. As the title suggests, Ichigo spends most of the fic running to preserve his chastity while trying to find a way to remove the drug's effects. - The Student Prince:
- Lady Viva uses one on Arthur, as per the canon.
- Arthur suspects Merlin of using a love spell on him after he finds out about Merlin being a wizard.
- "Transition👁 Image
" (Teen Titans (2003)): Jinx and Raven end up stranded on a living alien planet that has this effect. Initially, it only works on Raven, making her act happy, calm, sympathetic and lustful toward Jinx. While it isn't harmful both Jinx, and later the both the Teen Titans and the Justice League initially find Raven to be creepier than usual. - Under Love's Enchantment👁 Image
: Chat Noir becomes the victim of a matchmaking akuma, which results in him becoming obsessed with Marinette. It's later revealed that Akuma's power worked by making her victim compelled to be near their designated targets. That brought out the feelings Adrien already had for Marinette. - Vodka and the Evil-Ass Love Potion is about the titular character being told by Agnes Tachyon that the latter has administered a love potion on Vodka's rival/roommate/definitely-not-her-crush Daiwa Scarlet, and all the shenanigans that escalate from there. It's revealed to be a subversion at the end; there was never a real love potion, and Tachyon had told the exact same thing to Scarlet about Vodka so that the two of them would eventually have no choice but to confront their true feelings for each other.
- Vow of Nudity: In one story, a succubus shapeshifts into Spectra's teammate and tries to drug her using a Philter of Love. Luckily, Spectra realizes what's happening and uses her changeling powers to redirect the potion to a nonporous cyst in her breast instead of being digested in her stomach.
- Brox's Kiss, the hot pink short sword in With Strings Attached, causes people of the opposite sex of the wielder to fall in love with and obey the wielder. Works perfectly — until the wielder loses control of the sword for more than a few minutes. Wisely, she runs off.
- You'll Be Well Done!👁 Image
(Dissidia Final Fantasy): One of these devices, of the Type 2 flavor (referred to specifically as a lust potion) is responsible for much of the plot. Kefka Palazzo steals this potion from Ultimecia and uses it to set Sephiroth on Terra Branford's trail, hoping to see a violent rape happen as a result. Sephiroth, however, realizes that it serves his plans better to inveigle Terra into some semblance of willingness to have sex with him, so he visits Ultimecia as she is brewing more of her lust potion in order to request a flask of the potion for his own use. (He deliberately leaves Ultimecia, and the audience, guessing whether he means for his intended seduction to sway Terra willingly back into serving the discord-god Chaos, or to see Terra remove Kefka from Chaos's ranks by killing him after the power-boost the resulting liaison ought to give her.)- Unfortunately, Kefka gets angry with Sephiroth for deciding that mercy, even if feigned, suited his plans better than outright sadism and blasts Sephiroth and Terra both with his Light of Judgment spell while they're too distracted with each other to notice his presence.
- Luckily for Terra, however, the harmony-goddess Cosmos hears Terra's prayer for forgiveness and realizes that Sephiroth has trapped Terra between a rock and a hard place and pulls a literal example of a Deus ex Machina, revealing the nature of the evil influence under which Terra had fallen when Firion found her in a compromising position, and for this reason Terra isn't held accountable for her under-the-influence actions.
Film — Animated
- Aladdin: Defied. Genie states that one of his rules is that he can't make people fall in love. Young children watching might think this is just a lame cop-out to keep from resolving the plot too easily, but older viewers will understand that this would be rape, plain and simple. Later, when Jafar has the lamp, he wishes for Jasmine to fall in love with him. Just as Genie tries to explain that he can't do that, Aladdin sneaks in to steal the lamp back; Jasmine sees him and suddenly begins to flirt with Jafar as a distraction, to Genie's complete confusion.
- Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Amazing Pleasant Goat: Mr. Slowy uses something called the "Cordial Spray" at the beginning of the movie to fight Wolffy, the Cordial Spray being heart-shaped and having aesthetic lips where it sprays the substance. It hits Master Paopao instead, causing him to fall in love with Brother Tai and chase him around passionately.
- Secret Magic Control Agency: Ilvira force-feeds the king cookies laced with a potion, so that he falls in love with her and makes her his queen.
- Shrek 2 has one of these as a critical plot point.note If you look carefully, you'll see that the bottle has "IX" written on it, a Shout-Out to the song, "Love Potion #9" This particular potion causes the drinker to fall in love with the first person who kisses them. The Fairy Godmother orders King Harold to pour it into Fiona's drink, so that when Prince Charming kisses her, she will fall in love with him. However, the love potion is treated very seriously as a creepy breach of the target's free will, and Harold can't bring himself to do that to his beloved daughter. At the last moment, he decides not to give Fiona the potion-laced drink after seeing how much she loves Shrek and how truly unhappy she is with Charming.
Fairy Godmother: (furious) HAROLD! You were supposed to give her the potion!
King Harold: (smugly) Well, I guess I gave her the wrong tea. - The main conflict of Strange Magic is formed around a love potion. Making one is incredibly difficult since you need a petal from the primrose flower, which only grows on the border of the Dark Forest and is constantly being cut down by the mooks of the Bog King. Also, the only one who can turn the petal into the potion is the Sugar Plum fairy, who is imprisoned by the Bog King. He really, really doesn't want there to be love potions. He's got practical concerns, since it can and does lead to chaos, but his real reason is that the love potion failed to work for him since true love overpowers the potions.
Films — Live-Action
- Batman & Robin: Poison Ivy's pheromones. One whiff and the victim falls helplessly in love with her.
- Comin' Round the Mountain: Wilbert is provided with one to win Dorothy over after she falls for a Winfield with a similar background to her (having moved up north and only returned home for a visit), only for he and Matt to accidentally drink it and each fall for the first person of the opposite gender they see (Matt and Al, respectively). Fortunately, it wears off before any wedding goes off. Later, Devil Dan accidentally gets a dose, and promptly falls for Wilbert, though in his case it ends up triggering only friendship and brotherly love until it wears off.
- The Craft: Sarah puts Chris under a love spell after he pretended to be interested in her, but turned out to just be an asshole instead. It works fine at first, until Chris becomes so enamored with Sarah that he starts stalking her, culminating in a date rape attempt. Nancy then kills him in retaliation.
- Crush (2022): Chantal, a Wiccan girl at the school, has tried to cast love spells multiple times on Paige, but they don't work. Turns out the spell was for Paige and AJ, i.e. to get them together.
- Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald: It's revealed that Queenie has dosed Jacob with a love potion; not to make him love her, as he already does, but to convince him to marry her, which he has refused to do since it's illegal in the United States for a witch or wizard to marry a No-Maj and he doesn't want her to get into trouble for his sake.
- Hercules Unchained: The "Waters of Forgetfulness" are used by an evil queen to enslave Hercules and make him think she is his wife. He catches on to the ruse later, thanks to his trusty sidekick Ulysses, who manages to secretly spill the magical water anytime someone tries giving it to Hercules.
- I Married a Witch: Jennifer prepares one for Wally so she can break his heart (she's evil), but she winds up drinking it by accident. Cue High-Heel–Face Turn.
- Jasminum: Natasza makes perfume that works as love potion. It has to be made for a specific couple, though.
- Love Potion No. 9 takes a different tack from the song of the same name. The "potion" makes (temporary) changes to the voice of the person who takes it such that anyone of the opposite sex hearing them speak is attracted to them — and willing to do anything they ask (and makes members of the same sex hate them just as much). Larger doses escalate the effect dramatically, as the villainess discovers when she consumes undiluted potion (it's supposed to be diluted 1:1000 in water), inadvertently creating a Thundering Herd of men following her after she chugs it. These effects are not from the eponymous #9 potion, but from #8. The gypsy woman who sells the potion to the protagonists (and has a full range of love potions from 1 through 9, with varying effects) keeps the #9 potion, the strongest, in reserve for a later date. When the two realize they might love one another, then the #9 is imbibed by both. The gypsy warns that if they truly love one another, then their love will never die; if it is not true love, then they will not be able to stand the sight of one another.
- The Love Witch: Elaine drugs Wayne with one. However, it doesn't work, causing him to hallucinate and grow clingy before dying. It was later revealed to mostly contain jimson weed (devil's weed), which both causes hallucinations and is also highly toxic.
- A Man with a Maid: Jack purchases a powerful aphrodisiac that he mixes into elderberry wine in an attempt to seduce Alice. It certainly works on Samson and Fanny when they drink it.
- The Party Animal: Pondo Sinatra eventually makes a potent love potion out of random chemicals in a science lab. After exposing himself to the potion, it works too well—with disastrous results.
- Practical Magic: Sally the witch makes a love spell to avoid falling in love. The spell is supposed to ensure that she only falls in love with a guy with certain specifications. She deliberately makes a list of impossible specifications, to ensure that she can only fall in love with a non-existent guy, and thus not fall in love at all. Naturally, a guy with the right specifications shows up. Sally does marry before the guy she specified shows up. Her aunts see how lonely and sad she is (and that neither she or her sister are likely to be having kids soon) and cast a spell causing her and a local young man to fall in love and marry. But the ancestress' curse, the reason Sally didn't want to marry, kicks in.
- The Shout: Crossley tells Rachel how Aboriginal magic men can take a minor possession belonging to a woman and enchant it to cause her to fall in love with him. He later does this to her by stealing a buckle off one of her shoes.
- Supergirl (1984): The witch Selena feeds Ethan a potion that will make him fall in love with the first woman he sees for the next 24 hours. After he drinks it, he wanders off and she tries to get him back by enchanting some heavy machinery. Supergirl stops the machines and then changes back to her Linda Lee identity, so Linda becomes the first woman he sees. After the potion wears off, he reveals he's fallen in love with Linda for real.
- The Thief of Bagdad (1940): The evil Grand Vizier Jaffar gives the Princess a "Blue Rose of Forgetfulness" which makes her forget all about her love for the hero (at least until he shows up to snap her out of it).
- Up the Chastity Belt: Lurkalot has a sideline in making and selling aphrodisiacs. It is not known if these are effective or just a scam.
- Were the World Mine: The gay student Timothy finds a secret recipe in the script for A Midsummer Night's Dream for a magic flower that causes Love at First Sight with no gender restrictions and uses it to make many members of his homophobic hometown walk a mile in his shoes.
- Willow: Madmartigan is accidentally hit with a love potion and stumbles into beautiful but deadly Sorsha's tent in the middle of her army encampment (while she's in her sleepwear). He proceeds to gush over her with compliments and poetry with which she is initially annoyed, but begins to enjoy. When the potion wears off and he admits he can't remember anything he just said to her she is pissed.
- Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell: The Djinn describes how he played a hand in The Trojan War ages ago when Helen of Troy wished to be seen as the World's Most Beautiful Woman. He granted her wish by making the key players in the conflict obsessed with having her, resulting in the deaths of thousands and the end of Troy.
Manhua
- Cupid's Chocolates: The eponymous Cupids Chocolates is a chocolate cake blessed by a cupid that causes the person who eats it to form False Memories of being in love with the deliverer. The premise of the series has the cake be accidentally picked up by Haoyi, who delivers it to his school's event faculty that happens to be comprised only of female students. You can guess what happens next.
Manhwa
- The love potions in The Remarried Empress are rare but highly effective. Grand Duke Kaplan brings one to Navier for her to use to get Sovieshu to fall back in love with her. Kaplan, however, ends up using it on himself and falls for Navier, hard. When he tries it again with Heinry after his wedding with Navier, the potion only works for them for a day. An acquaintance of the Grand Duke theorizes this is because Kaplan already had feelings for Navier before he took the first potion, and the effects may be life-long.
Music
- The song "Love Potion #9" (recorded first by The Clovers and then The Searchers, among others) plays with this trope, illustrating why, if you ever get your hands on a love potion, you should not test it on yourself.
I didn't know if it was day or night
I started kissing everything in sight
But when I kissed a cop down on 34th and Vine
He broke my little bottle of Love Potion #9 - In the song "Funky Cold Medina" by Tone Loc, the singer attempts to test the eponymous substance on his dog. If he'd paid proper attention to the results, he would have realized that it doesn't work exclusively on the opposite sex rather than having to figure that out the hard way. He continues using it anyway until he finds out that some of the people he's using a Love Potion on will react by wanting to marry him in addition to having sex with him.
- In the music video for Jennifer Lopez's song "Papi," J-Lo plays a woman who eats a magic cookie that she is told will bring her absent lover back. The next day, every man in town who sees her falls madly in love with her, causing a lot of chaos throughout.
Pro Wrestling
- Winter used one on Angelina Love that resembled a bokor's hoodoo zombie drug better than most actual depictions of Hollywood Voodoo (including TNA's early stint with Roxxi Laveaux). Love eventually snapped out of it, but decided she still loved Winter anyway.
Tabletop Games
- 7th Sea: "Godiva's Tears", a powerful aphrodisiac used to lower a victim's inhibitions (and gives said victims a penalty towards resisting any Seduction attempts). Likewise, master practitioners of sorte magic can strengthen or even create Passion strands between two targets out of the blue, albeit temporary.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition has a love potion that essentially functioned as a Charm Person spell, complete with limited duration. It should be noted that the Philter of Love actually has two effects. The Charm Person effect was stronger, but wore off after a relatively short period of time. The infatuation effect? Not so much.
- Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition: The philter of love has the dubious honor of being the only item removed from Adventurers League (as of season 10), as opposed to not having been available from the start, after a player used it to seduce a campaign boss and steal his hoard of magic items.
- GURPS:
- GURPS Technomancer doesn't shy away from the moral implications, outright calling the Elixir of Love (along with the Elixirs of Lechery and Drunkenness) a "date-rape potion."
- GURPS Warehouse 23: A love potion of sorts was created by a Mad Scientist following close examination of the dissected brains of people in love. It's a combination of chemicals and engineered viruses that functions by erasing the "template" for an ideal partner, which the brain tries to replace by imprinting on the first person it sees; increasing libido; and forcing the areas of the brain responsible for attraction to fire constantly. It creates permanent and irreversible love and devotion — only people already in love have a chance to resist the effects at imbibing — at two costs. One, the victim becomes an essentially mindless slave with little to no independent personality. Two, their obsession becomes so strong that they physically cannot die as long as they have reason to think that the object of their desire exists somewhere that they can reach.
- Rifts: Faerie food may work like this, depending on which food it is. Beefcake, for instance, will cause a love-at-first-sight effect towards men by any woman who eats it. Their version of Eros also has his arrows: Gold as the classic Love Arrow, Pink Affection Arrows, (target feels generously amorous and will confess their feelings to anyone they're already in love with), and lead Anti-Love Arrows.
- Scion: One of the signature characters is Donnie Rhodes, Scion of Aphrodite. Like Aphrodite's other son, Cupid, he has Eros and Anteros, the arrows of love and hatred; unlike Cupid, these take the form of two gold-plated Berettas. At one point in the fiction, he threatens to hit a fellow Scion with Eros and leave the guy wanting him until the end of time, spurning his advances all the while.
- The World of Darkness:
- Genius: The Transgression: Players can create mind control devices; using them sexually is the second highest level of Transgression alongside rape or serial murder.
- Mage: The Awakening: Mages sufficiently powerful with Mind magic can force someone to fall in love (or lust) with someone else (not necessarily the mage). If potent enough, it can completely override a person's natural inclinations or sexuality (for example, forcing a heterosexual homophobe to fall in love with a man). It's noted that many mages would consider the use of this spell to be akin to rape. A lot of the high-level mage powers raise difficult moral questions, and a lot of them have a lot of Power Perversion Potential. Life can be used to rewire someone's biology for similar purposes, time-loops are easily exploited for seduction, and using Fate to tie someone's destiny to someone else's forcibly isn't even a high-level power.
- Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Requiem: The blood bond, or vinculum, has similar effects to a love potion. A human or vampire who's made to drink another vampire's blood three times becomes bound to them for a long time; as long as the bond is in effect, they can't bring a hand to harm them, even if they hate their guts. Needless to say, most vampires do not want to get caught in one of these.
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse: All werecreatures have the "Animal Magnetism" ability that allows the player to awaken primal lust in their target. The original purpose of this power was to make babies, since unlike Vampires, the only way shapeshifters can increase their numbers is through old-fashioned sexual reproduction. However, seduction as a means to other ends is not unheard of. More than one player has noted that this power is basically magic rape, and later editions changed it so that it won't work if the target is of an Incompatible Orientation, spoken for and strictly monogamous, or would not otherwise want to have sex with the player. But even these rules do nothing but create a "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization, meaning it's still one of the dirtier tricks in the werecreatures' arsenal.
Theatre
- The Addams Family (2010) musical takes this trope and turns it on its side. Potion that removes inhibitions towards an emotion, check. Taken by the wrong person and hilarity ensues? Check. Except, the emotion in question is rage, not lust. Wednesday has grown up and found herself a "normal" boy, with equally normal parents. Pugsley can't stand this, so tries to dose her with said potion in hopes she'll make a fool of herself in front of the boy's parents. The boyfriend's mother—a Stepford Smiler who Rhymes on a Dime when we meet her—ends up with it, and rages at her husband for being so BORING! This reminds hubby that yes, he used to be a wild child too, and the two proceed to become much more Addams-like. Through this, the two rekindle the passions of their youthful courtship and become far more acceptable as in-laws to the Addams, so in a way it is, in the end, a love potion.
- L'elisir d'amore ("The Elixir of Love"), by Donizetti, subverts this: unbeknownst to Nemorino, the elixir of the title turns out to be simply wine that he bought off a Snake Oil Salesman. He drinks it to try to win over his beloved Adina, and while this is going on, the ladies of the village (except Adina) learn that Nemorino's uncle passed away and left him a substantial inheritance. In other words, any woman who marries him will be set for life. So all the women swarm him trying to win his hand in marriage, making him think the potion worked beyond his wildest dreams. Adina sees all this and realizes she loves him after all. She speaks to the salesman to learn more about the elixir, but when he offers to sell it to her, she turns it down in favor of wooing Nemorino the old-fashioned way: with her wits and sensuality.
- A Midsummer Night's Dream, by William Shakespeare, has, as its central plot, two pairs of lovers accidentally mis-matched when the Fairy King Oberon tries the "fall in love with the first person you see" approach to get them to fall in love with the "right" people via a magical flower, only for Puck to muck it up by dosing the wrong Athenian. Hilarity Ensues. Oberon also uses the flower in a plot to get revenge on his wife — by having her fall in love with a hapless peasant man with the head of a donkey.
- And in the very odd (and possibly disturbing) case of one of these potions going right, at the end of the play, Demetrius and Lysander, who have been pursuing Hermia, have each been doused with a love potion to make them adore Helena. Lysander is given the antidote, but Demetrius (who, it is implied, began seeing Helena first before the events of the play) awakes, still under the effect of the potion, where he will probably remain for life.
- Demetrius hated, or at least ignored Helena prior to the love potion. The point was that both couples were happy at the end, though there are definite Unfortunate Implications in that nobody has any problem with it.
- Depending on the company performing it, Demetrius's "hate" of Helena is often played as more a school-ground crush sort of thing, where he's mean to her because he likes her... And nobody has a problem with it because none of the human characters have any idea it happened. The lovers wake up and think it was a dream and accept the current state of relationship as the status quo.
- Not that this excuses it, but Demetrius was courting Helena before he met Hermia, at which point he dropped Helena like a hot rock. Back in the day, one might have considered his inconstancy a character flaw which the potion corrected.
- Der Ring des Nibelungen, by Richard Wagner: Sometimes a potion doesn't have to "make" someone fall in love with another, but instead just make them forget who they are and whom they may currently be in love with., Siegfried is given an "Ale of Forgetfulness" by Hagen which makes him forget all about Brünnhilde, his beloved, or any other woman, and fall in love with Hagen's half-sister. The purpose of this is to ensure that: she will get married, Siegfried will retrieve a bride for his half-brother-in-law, and he will get the ring. This later prompts Brünnhilde to enact a terrible revenge once she learns about the potion, so nothing good really comes out of using it.
- The Sorcerer, one of the earlier Gilbert and Sullivan operas, is one of the most blatantly trope-ish examples in that the story makes barely any attempt to pretend this could go well; the potion is purchased by an engaged couple with the intent of dosing their entire village. (It won't affect legally married couples, but the village does have a priest... and that's all in the intentional, best case scenario.)
- Tristan und Isolde, on the other hand, does feature a love-potion, though it is implied that its effect is merely to fan their already smouldering passion into open flames. In some mythological versions, it's entirely to blame for the entire plot: Tristan had no interest in Isolde, and the potion was for intended for her so she'd love her betrothed (Tristan's uncle). Tristan drinks it by accident, and, well...
Video Games
- The main plot of Clarice's Memories storyline in Arcana Heart 3 Love Max!!!!! has her making one in order to get Elsa to fall for her. Complications however arise, from Clarice having second thoughts about the whole thing (especially when Scharlachrot compares it to brainwashingnote And considering what she went through, who could blame her?) to the potion itself... tasting like ass. Turns out, the main use of the potion isn't really to make the intended target drink it; rather, you have to chug it down yourself, get ill from it, be nursed back to health by your loved one and then fall for them for their deed.
- Assassin's Creed: Odyssey: A quest on Seriphos has a supposed local witch offer a young woman a love potion to help her would-be suitor fall in love with her, and the Eagle Bearer is conscripted to help fetch the suspicious ingredients (pointing out there's no such thing doesn't work). The result is the young woman's hair falls out. The "witch" was also looking to get the man, and this was her method of sabotage. She'd only expected a nasty rash, but doesn't complain about the results, taunting her victim for being stupid enough to believe her.
- In Discworld, you can find a custard-pie recipe from Nanny Ogg which acts as a Love Potion. You need to use it once on Rincewind so that he can actually give Nanny Ogg a Big Damn Kiss to obtain a Plot Coupon and use it at the very end of the game on the Dragon, causing her to fall in love with the Swamp Dragon Mambo and leave Ankh-Morpork alone. Furthermore, trying to use the pie on the sexy amazon has her falling not for Rincewind but for an anonymous old man standing several feets away from her.
- Echoes of the Plum Grove: The Cupid's Arrow potion allows the player to make a given villager fall in love with another villager of their choice. The mechanic is completely at home in a game that also allows the player to lethally poison any villager they wish.
- Arcadia, an alchemist from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, turns out to want the Frost Salts given to you by Whiterun's resident court wizard Farengar for one of these.
- Elona has them, and they do work as advertised on a character's relationship score. However, one, they only move it by a small amount, requiring multiple potions; two, using them incurs a hefty karma penalty; and three, it doesn't prevent a character's relationship score from going down.
- In Fairytale Fights, love potions can be thrown or used in glory attacks to stun enemies or drank which fully heals you and makes you temporarily invincible.
- Used in an optional subquest in Fallout 3; upon visiting Rivet City, the protagonist comes across a waitress who confesses, after some prodding, into being in love with a member of the in-city clergy. You then have the option of giving her a mutant insect gland full of a particularly potent pheromone, allowing her to seduce the apprentice holy man. After their wedding, if you speak to said apprentice, he admits that he feels a little odd about the whole thing, but that he feels obligated to make an honest woman out of her. You even get a Positive Karma boost out of it!
- Fate/Grand Order:
- The Elixir of Love Craft Essence, which has the mechanical effect of increasing Charm success rate by 15%. Not even a Servant can resist its effect (...for the one turn that Charms last for). The Craft Essence is a reference back to Fate/Prototype: Fragments of Sky Silver, where Nigel Sayward creates a love potion to fuel Brynhild's love towards Arthur to make her stronger.
- Kiyohime (Lancer) gives you chocolates spiked with a love potion for her Valentine's Day gift, and per most Love Potion usage examples it fails. She doesn't hide it at all, either, despite its name of "Just Some Ordinary Chocolates" — the Craft Essence itself shows the same bottle from the Elixir of Love CE open and pouring out, and the long description of this CE has Kiyohime confess what she did since she hates lying, but also continuing to scheme that she'd sneak in during the night to force-feed these chocolates to the Master. Oh, and she's nice enough to attach an antidote to the love potion anyway, making it a moot point.
- A short series of quests in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 involves a student becoming sick after drinking an unfinished love potion. And then falling in love with the teacher. Eventually, it turns out she fell in love with him because he stayed by her side while she was sick, not because the love potion worked, similar to the Arcana Heart example above.
- There's also the Ranger ability Love Potion, which sets a trap that inflicts Charm.
- In Granblue Fantasy, Vyrn becomes the unwitting drinker of one provided to him by Sierokarte. Its effects on those who already adore him heighten their adoration to insanely scary levels.
- Guilty Gear: Elphelt's Instant Kill "Magnum Wedding" has her fire a special bullet at her opponent that makes them fall in love with her. However, some characters, like Ky and Dizzy or Zato, are either unaffected but are taken down anyway or fight against the effects.
- Higurashi Daybreak and its single-episode anime adaptation revolve around a pair of magatama that will cause its holders to fall in love with each other. In the anime version, Rena accidentally swallows one of them, and the other one passes around from one person to the next, including a female character. Needless to say, Hilarity Ensues.
- Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards: you can obtain some aphrodisiac pills: if you use them alone, Larry decides to indulge into acts of bestiality offscreen and gets a Game Over. The actual use is to give them to Faith, one of the girls you have to seduce. They do work, but she's attracted to her boyfriend, not Larry.
- Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail! has a variation with the Juggs: after reading an anedocte in a magazine, you have to switch their deodorant for silicone lubricant and tamper with the lights. The combination of lubricant, heat and latex has an aphrodisiac effect on the duo, who proceed to tackle Larry for Twin Threesome Fantasy action. In a downplayed example, you also have to lace your kumquat quiche with orgasmic powder to win the cooking competition.
- Normally an avid man-chaser (and magnet), Nikki from Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis, soon tires of the many admirers that she attracted. The solution her friends make? A Loveless Potion. It worked well for her. Maybe a little too well. Things went from bad to worse. Well, worse for Nikki, that is...
- Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny, a Love Potion is an item you can find. Using it as a gift will improve your relationship with the other playable characters, though only one of them is a woman.
- Petz: With the third game introducing breeding, it also introduced the Love Potion, a perfume in a heart-shaped jar that helps to get your petz in the mood for love.
- Pokémon: The Normal-type move "Attract" can be used to make an opposite-sex Pokémon fall in love with your Pokémon for a few turns, so that it won't attack your Pokémon.
- Tia from Potion Maker is secretly interested in it. The disturbing fact is that she's probably capable of actually making it.
- Quintessence - The Blighted Venom has a particularly nasty one, deliberately designed and used as straight-up Mind Control. After killing the one who was supposed to administer it to her, the female co-protagonist of the story ends up using it on the protagonist, seemingly purely to keep him focused on the job of helping her.
- In Shin Megami Tensei II, The Rival Daleth attempts to put Aleph out of commission by throwing a love potion (Taken from A Midsummer Night's Dream) on him in order to make him fall in love with a local girl. However, Hiroko ends up taking the hit for Aleph, and becomes infatuated with Daleth. What follows is rather uncharacteristic for a main series Shin Megami Tensei game.
- The love potion appears in a side quest in Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon where Oberon uses it on Titania after she falls for Raidou.
- Most of the games from the Rune Factory series have them, and just like the example above, work in small increments on a neighbor's affection values. Usually they're pretty unaware of what's happening when the effect kicks in, but try giving these potions to someone specialized at Pharmacy (the skill you have to work on to craft it), like for example witch / doctor Marjorie, to hear the granny snark at you for trying to fool her like this... And then drinking it anyway, because it was a pretty expensive and taxing effort to get all the required ingredients, and it tastes good all the same.
- The Sims 2. It can either be bought from the matchmaker, a witch, or if your sim is a witch/warlock, they can make their own. It doesn't do much except make romantic interactions easier.
- In The Sims 3 Supernatural expansion, love potions are brought back. In this game, they make whatever person the Sim next talks to become a Romantic Interest.
- Sticky Business: In Book of Shadows, Azelia asks for some flower stickers, particularly those from the second witch set, to use as sigils to burn in order to activate the love spell she plans to cast on Loki. She successfully goes on a date with him as a result and continues casting love spells on him, but she doesn't realize that Loki has always crushed on her back since their first meeting and he was only playing along just to make her happy. In the end, she stops using any more spells once Loki confesses his true feelings for her offscreen.
- Played with a lot in the fancomics of Touhou Project, from Eirin's shady new drugs to youkai-only-aphrodisiac mushrooms that Marisa picked and Alice accidentally ate when she was staying over.
- In World of Warcraft, in Stormwind, you can overhear a group of three female mages talking about various magical practices and rituals. One of their conversations ends with this line.
"Wow, all of this for a love potion. Hope he's worth it."
- In Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 you have the Love Source, which gives the highest amount of Affinity/Trust between party members in the original game and between Driver and Blade in 2. In both games, it's very hard to get. In one, you have to get a Random Drop off one of the Superbosses, get a specific NPC to trade with and have the regional Affinity of the area be max (aka lots of questing), and have skills off of Shulk and Riki that increase the value of the item. In 2, it's partial Bribing Your Way to Victory as the way to make Love Sources is behind a DLC paywall, but the player still has to go gather ingredients, including one where they can only have one at a time, to make the Love Source.
Web Animation
- In The Academy of Magic, Roxanne, Jealous that Xavier went to prom with Dezi, gives Xavier a love potion, which is later cured by true love's kiss from Dezi.
- The first episode of AstroLOLogy, "Scent-o-logy", is about Aquarius creating a love potion with the intention of spraying it on Sagittarius so that she'll fall in love with him. He ends up spraying Taurus, Capricorn, and Leo instead by accident.
- Helluva Boss: Asmodeus the Sin of Lust actually takes a moment to discuss love potions with Stolas... and why he is against their use. Stolas quickly clarifies that he came to Asmodeus for something else.
"Well I can tell ya', if you're looking for a love potion, you came to the wrong fucking guy. I don't fuck with that artificial bullshit! Lust shouldn't be about force... It's an art! To be earned and enjoyed. It's all about that journey to Pleasure Town. You feel me?"
- Averted in The Spider Cliff Mysteries: Katherine Sprawling's use of a love potion on Thomas Elkwood hit the correct person and resulted in a 30 year marriage. Annabelle's attempt at using a potion appears to have failed due to the intended target being forewarned about the exact mode of delivery.
- Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers:
- In "Peachosal Love", after Mario's final attempt to get Peach to love him fails thanks to "gay Bob-ombs", he attempts this with help from Merlon. Unfortunately, it turns Peach into a raging monster.
- In "Awkward Weddings", Mario and Luigi get a love potion from the Rock Wizard so that Peach and Daisy would fall in love with them. Unfortunately, they fail to hear the warning about the first person in the drinker's sight being their love (because an old man in a bathtub ran over the wizard); as a result, it backfires horribly, with instead SMG4 and X being the first people Peach and Daisy see, which almost results in them getting married. Thankfully, Ruffman8890 (the Rock Wizard's crazed assistant), who was demanding to know who used all of his toilet paper at the time, farted, breaking the spell.
- Fazbear and Friends (ZAMination): Monika and her friends create their own potions in chemistry class to fall in love with Freddy, although in the end the latter explodes because he is lactose intolerant.
Webcomics
- Charby the Vampirate: Mye cooked up👁 Image
a number of love potions for Victor as well as shapeshifting to look like an attractive adult woman while she was stalking him. - Clan of the Cats👁 Image
: The Lesbian Vampire Rose uses an anti-love potion to cause Chelsea and Jubal to break up, so she could then seduce Chelsea. This actually works, as she leads Chelsea on a minor rampage through New Orleans, but after Chelsea has a My God, What Have I Done? moment, the truth comes out about what Rose had done to them. - Parodied rather amusingly in a Death Note fan comic👁 Image
. Even Halle points out how "stupid and overused [an] idea it is," though her common sense is quickly shoved to the side. If only Near had listened, his face might not have been so humourous when things didn't go exactly as planned. - Erfworld: Discussed. The main protagonist is stuck in a situation where he would consider pursuing any of his possible romantic partners as effectively rape (although due to cultural differences they wouldn't). The exception is one woman who is already in love with him, but whose feelings he doesn't reciprocate. In a discussion with a magic user that has relationship magic among her disciplines he suggests resolving this by taking such a potion himself so that he'd return her affections; she's disgusted by the idea for the same reasons he doesn't want to pursue his followers, and explains that while potions for related purposes "can be quite fun" nothing like what he's describing exists.
- Hooky: Princess Monica and Dani brew a potion for Marc to fall in love with Dani — but instead, it causes Marc to hate Dani and he tries to strangle her.
- Nixvir: In background worldbuilding, a gnome produced an entire brand of these using the plant love-in-idleness (as in, the magic plant from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream). These do not appear in the series.
- Nodwick's Garage Sale story arc featured a would-be Casanova slipping a love potion of the "First person you see" variety into Piffany's lemonade. Needless to say, Hilarity Ensues.
- Oglaf:
- This strip👁 Image
(Warning: SFW), a man drinks a love potion that was supposed to be given to the woman that he wanted to fall in love with him, and he falls in love with the potion. - Another👁 Image
has a man ask for potions for "Personal Hygiene, Self-Confidence, Listening, and Good Conversation". The potion seller deduces that the man wants a love potion but doesn't want to go to jail for presumably using a magical roofie. She offers a potion of self-delusion, which lets the imbiber think they slept with the person.
- This strip👁 Image
- Sluggy Freelance: The Love Potion: PART 1👁 Image
and PART 2👁 Image
. Although this👁 Image
is where the subject comes up. Gwynn tries to use this love-first-person-you-see potion to make Riff fall in love with her, Dex fall in love with Zoë, and Torg fall for... er... Bun-bun. Zoë initially protests, but quickly comes around as her one-sided crush Dex drinks it and immediately starts reciprocating. Of course, such a premise cannot be played without the pitfalls: Bun-bun falls for Gwynn, Riff falls for Crystal, and Crystal falls for Torg. Also, the potion was supposed to wear off gradually, so it would basically just keep the romance going long enough for genuine love to develop, but because the potion was mixed with alcohol, and/or because the person giving the recipe had his own agenda, the effects actually got stronger over time and included a tendency to go Ax-Crazy, making it a Love Dodecahedron with a generous dose of Murder the Hypotenuse."I love Zoe so much! I can hardly contain myself! I love her enough to die for her! I love her enough... to kill!" ... "KILL KILL MURDER KILL STABBITY STAB STAB STAB KILL" - In the Spells R Us comic "Dream Girl", the wizard sells a love potion to a girl, but there's a catch. When the girl tricks the boy she likes into drinking the potion, it has no effect on him. Instead, it turns her into his ideal woman by changing her mind and body. And the effects are retroactive, which means that even her parents have no memory of who she used to be.
- Think Before You Think: It's revealed that Mandi desperately wants a lesbian love potion, but no one finds out why until a while later. This leads to a series of somewhat weird events.
- Two Guys and Guy: Played with in this👁 Image
comic."Maybe now I'll finally be able to love myself." - The Wotch: Cassie tried this, with the predictable results — instead of getting Robin's affections, she instead gained the unwanted attention of his kid brother and a guy at school whom she disliked. Naturally enough, it is only after she fails at this that he asks her on a date for completely unrelated reasons, causing her to pour the rest of the vial in a decorative plant at the local mall—which also falls in love with her.
- Yang Child: It more-or-less works, where a Mysterious Watcher slips a love potion to the heroes in order to inconvenience them. It ends up on the "wrong" target and is used way after B.B. date.
Web Original
- The story thread "Lust Dust"👁 Image
on the Anime Addventure👁 Image
features a powerful aphrodisiac that makes a mess of many, many relationships. - The eponymous Cupids in The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids dip their arrows in Love Potion to make people fall in love whether they like it or not. The original formula of Love Potion was created by the Cupids' own Mad Scientist creator, but they then lost the formula and get their supplies directly from the goddess Aphrodite instead as "the next best thing".
- In Receiver of Many, golden arrows shot by Eros are very potent in igniting love and desire. Even being close to one can make someone aroused against their will. Being simply scratched by the arrow causes Hades to obsess over Persephone. If it has actually reached its target — his heart — he would probably be driven mad with need and snatched her away and had sex with her the moment he found her.
Web Videos
- Discussed in CaFae Latte. Love potions exist and do seem to work, but as they create false emotions they are basically magical date rape drugs and are illegal. A much more ethical form of magical romance assistance is a love charm, a good luck charm specific to romantic situations.
- Critical Role has one pop up in its 109th episode. Taryon had intended for Vax to slip it to Grog, but Vax thought better and let Scanlan have it (giving it to the player who gave it to him, even). Scanlan proceeded to fall in lust with Percy, which greatly vexed Vex, and shenanigans ensued for about 40 minutes of playing. Making it even better, it was an episode with a live audience, so there was instant feedback on how great it all went.
- Deconstructed in the YouTube horror short "Love Potion"👁 Image
. Chris wants to get back with Kylie, but Kylie will have none of it. He spikes her soda with a very generous portion of his Love Potion #9 while she briefly leaves the car. She ends up so smitten with him that she cannot stand another minute being unmarried to him, and drives so fast that it leads to a car crash. But even before that, Chris was learning that it was becoming a case of Be Careful What You Wish For. Her instantly wanting to rush to the altar and grand plans for a family of 12 children was really freaking him out. - In the SuperMarioLogan episode "The Love Potion!", Cody invents a love serum for Bowser Junior to inject into Britknee, the newest student, to get her to fall in love with him. However, there are two catches; once injected, she falls in love with the first person she sees (who happens to be Jeffy), and after a few hours, the serum turns her into a dragon.
Real Life
- Spanish Fly is often marketed as a love drug/aphrodisiac. While there is no indication the product works, plenty of ads market it as instantly making a woman fall head over heels in lust. Comedian Bill Cosby even used to joke about using it during some of his more adult shows in the '80s, which is even more unfortunate given the allegations of sexual assault against him.