The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Ellis Brooklyn was founded with the goal of making modern American fragrances that feel intimate rather than performative. Sci Fi, launched in 2017 and composed by Jérôme Epinette, arrived as a departure from the brand's more conventional offerings. It takes familiar materials and uses them in ways that feel slightly unfamiliar, creating the sensation of a scent that arrived from somewhere else. The green tea note is the mechanism that makes this possible, a material that carries a built-in sense of transport and quietude that most fragrance ingredients cannot replicate on their own. Bitter orange and bergamot support that ambition by opening cleanly without loudness, keeping the composition grounded in something approachable.
The note choices in Sci Fi reflect a philosophy of restraint. Bitter orange and bergamot in the opening serve a functional purpose: they signal freshness without demanding attention. Green tea in the heart is the intellectual choice, a material that carries cultural weight and sensory specificity that most florals cannot match. Vanilla and cashmere wood in the drydown complete the arc by offering warmth and intimacy rather than projection and presence. The pairing rationale is straightforward: each phase transitions to the next without interruption, and no note ever competes for dominance.
The evolution
The opening of bitter orange and bergamot delivers immediate brightness, a citrus impression that is clean and unapologetic. Within twenty minutes the green tea and pink freesia emerge, with green tea providing a quiet, slightly bitter green note and pink freesia softening the transition with a delicate floral presence. The drydown is where Sci Fi becomes its most honest version, as vanilla and cashmere wood arrive together and create a warm, enveloping quality that feels like a second skin. The progression from citrus to green to warm wood is linear and unhurried, a scent that does not rush its own story.
Cultural impact
Sci Fi occupies a specific corner of indie perfumery. The green tea note does real work here, giving the citrus-vanilla-floral structure an unexpected coolness that makes it feel strange and compelling. The name suggests something unconventional, and the composition delivers by taking familiar materials and arranging them slightly off-axis. This creates a fragrance that feels approachable yet genuinely distinctive. The green tea adds an unexpected edge that makes this work for someone who appreciates complexity. It's a vanilla fragrance that surprises you, that makes you lean in closer to understand what you're smelling.
