Make Yourself More Memorable With the Sexiest Winter Scent of 2025
Cozy, cool, and sexy without trying too hard, Ellis Brooklyn’s Vanilla Man will spark nonstop compliments at all your holiday fêtes.
Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
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Smell is the strongest sense tied to memory, but for those who obsessively buy and test new fragrances, it can be hard to parse the memorable scents from the rest. There are lovely perfumes—sophisticated, complex, even universally appealing. Then, there are some scents that feel truly unforgettable.
When I opened Ellis Brooklyn’s Vanilla Man Eau de Parfum, I felt it immediately: in my hands, I held a memory capturer. That statement may sound like florid nonsense, but it comes from the simple awareness that, given how much I loved it, it would be spritzed in such heavy rotation that I’ll forever associate it with this season of my life.
It is, and I say this without a smidgeon of hyperbole, the perfect winter 2025 scent.
Ellis Brooklyn Vanilla Man Eau de Parfum
A warm, gourmand vanilla fragrance that's perfect for the colder months.
Ellis Brooklyn Vanilla Man, note by note
Vanilla Man opens fresh with top notes of bergamot, mandarin leaves, and fresh juniper, offering an immediate burst of autumn-to-winter energy.
The middle, or heart, notes are clary sage (one of my favorites), lavender bud, and elemi resin, giving the fragrance a polished, warm feel.
Finally, the base notes are vanilla absolute, cedarwood atlas, and olibanum (also known as frankincense). It opens very green and gets warmer and spicier as the day goes on, making it an excellent choice to take you from the typical workday to your office holiday party and beyond.
Vanilla Man smells like the month of December, both as a whole and in its parts. The opening juniper notes smell like dodging Christmas tree markets on the sidewalk; heart notes of sage and resin are ordering spiced drinks at a cafe in between holiday shopping; and base notes of vanilla are hugging your extended family in a slightly-itchy turtleneck sweater you bought on a whim as you greet them for a party.
Each separately is strong enough to be a standalone memory; together, they’re a whole chapter of the year, meant to be paired with sweaters and sequins alike.
Why we love it
Ellis Brooklyn has always been excellent at creating dimensional fragrances that feel robust and thoughtfully layered, so this is very much in its wheelhouse. Vanilla Man stands out amongst the millions of vanillas thanks to the complexity and warmth of vanilla, combined with the herbaceousness of traditional masculine cologne. This fragrance lets both shine individually while allowing the notes to play off each other, so each side dovetails perfectly.
The bottle itself is also really lovely, with gentle curves and a minimalist label that allows the warm amber shade to shine. The magnetic cap is also a nice touch. (By the way, why don’t more brands feature magnetic toppers on their fragrances? It’s a brilliant invention.)
While Vanilla Man is marketed toward men (its tagline is “not your girlfriend’s vanilla”), it’s very unisex. It certainly has a bit of the spice you associate with male fragrances, but it’s still very wearable for all. When I asked Tara Goldstein, the Daily Beast’s community manager and a vanilla fragrance fan herself, to blind-smell it, she said it didn’t feel particularly masculine to her, and that it evolved to smell more vanilla as the day went on.
What scents layer well with Vanilla Man?
The fact that Vanilla Man marries two different ends of the fragrance spectrum also lends itself very well to layering. I’ve worn it paired with both Dedcool’s Xtra Milk (for more musk, more warmth) and my perennial Cool Girl favorite, the frankincense-heavy Opoponax by Santa Maria Novella (for more spice). Vanilla Man also wears very well on its own and, thanks to its longevity, you can smell how it evolves throughout the day.
Final thoughts
One of the things that makes perfume so special to me is just how sensorial it can be. If I smell Marc Jacobs Daisy on someone, I’m instantly transported to being in middle school again. When I want to wax nostalgic about college, I’ll walk through Soho and do an olfactory double feature of smelling Santa Maria Novella’s Angeli di Firenze before meandering through Sephora to smell Dolce & Gabbana’s L’imperatrice. Being able to conjure such vivid memories in a millisecond is a gift that fragrance imparts to us.
Want to be memorable? What you wear now is what you’ll sniff nostalgically for years to come, and what will invoke memories with you in others. My recommendation: pick up a bottle of Ellis Brooklyn Vanilla Man ($120 for 50 mL) as soon as possible so you can spray it through the holidays and beyond.