Sci Fi
Ellis Brooklyn

This opens a bright, citrusy tea. After a bit, the vanilla and cashmere add some cream and sugar to the tea but it remains quite refreshing

As a Ripley stan and lover of the scifi genre, I’m glad this didn’t disappoint. I count this among a handful of tea scents that don’t read extremely tannic to my nose. The others so far are Gris Charnel, Dear Polly and Oolong Infini, just in case you have the same problem

Generic dreck

A brief hit of orange creamsicle with a boring sweet vanilliac dry down. Smells cheap. The only unique thing about Sci Fi is its colour.

Sci Fi's copy says it's an "otherworldly vanilla." It's hard to resist that concept, really, especially when the scent itself is blue (or maybe that's just me; I like eldritch things, the color blue, and vanilla).

The opener is a very fresh, tart, zingy citrus, heavier on the sour orange but with the bergamot adding something green (note that the orange listed here is not an orange blossom/neroli/petitgrain, but an orange). Sci Fi has a really good citrus note combination: beautiful, full, tart, and bright. I can't say enough about how much I like the citrus notes in this; they're marvelous. Green tea shows up just behind the citrus, with a strong hedione edge. The floral notes are there, but they're a gentle backup. There's really very little sweetness to the top and middle notes. It's audacious tart zest, spiked with green tea and just a little smoothed out by florals.

The base notes, however, provide plenty of sweetness. My one disappointment here is that I never get a distinct vanilla. What I get is vanilla lurking in the background, making the cashmere woods something of a sticky, dulce de leche gourmand scent. This is beautiful, so I'm not complaining. It's reminiscent of what happens to the woods in the base notes of Si and La Vie Est Belle, but without the gooey, dirty patchouli (not that patchouli's bad, mind). Minus the patchouli and with the addition of the citrus, it's a far more delicate sweet than either of those.

I expected the citrus to fade fast and for the entire thing to wear down to a mix of greenish-smelling hedione and amberish cashmeran. It doesn't. The dulce de leche lingers, and the citruses last remarkably long. This blend wears quite well; further, it's got good sillage without being obnoxious. These Ellis Brooklyn scents aren't beasts, but they wear well enough. I do think the lightness of the notes and the sweetness of the base skew Sci Fi firmly toward feminine (I've sampled all of the current Ellis Brooklyn scents; my feel for them is primarily feminine except for Rives, which I think is truly unisex -- it's basically a fougère. Opinions will vary, of course).

I don't know that this is otherworldly, and it's not really a true and distinct vanilla scent on me, but this is a really nice clean scent, a well-done blend of sugar-sweet and bright sour.