The Art and Olfaction Artisan Award honors excellence and vision in independent perfumery. The 10th Art and Olfaction Artisan Award will be presented to two outstanding artisan perfumes out of ten finalists.
Note that there is an option to submit to the Aftel Award for Handmade Perfume and the Newcomers Award as part of the Artisan category submission. If you wish to submit to the Aftel Award or the Newcomers Award, go through the artisan application and tick the boxes at the end of the application to be considered for the artisan award and the other award(s).
The artisan category is for perfume houses that are owned or co-owned (minimum 35% ownership) by the brand's primary perfumer. This perfumer will have initiated and written the submitted perfume formulation. The submitted perfume will then have been released under the brand's name.
An artisan submission must meet all of these points:
The definition of artisan varies widely depending on who you ask. We came to our definition through our direct experience of various practices, across the globe.
For artisan perfumers in the EU (and selling to the EU) by necessity we allow for compounding laboratory input and production assistance with regards to making sure the formula is IFRA/EU compliant. To be fair to all, we therefore allow this sort of feedback and collaboration with a compounding laboratory for ALL artisan submitters.
We acknowledge that sometimes a formula can change with compounding lab or other input, but we believe that if the perfumer who wrote the original formula also owns or co-owns (with a minimum ownership of 35%) the company releasing the perfume, this proves sufficient in-house authorship to qualify the perfume for our artisan category.
Note also that we allow for an external entity to be utilized to expand the formulas for sale (e.g. add alcohol, compound the original formula for larger quantities, bottle, or package).
We define an artisan perfume, in short, as a scent where the perfumer who wrote the initial formula:
Everyone who submits to the artisan category should be prepared to provide the formula should any question arise about the authorship of the work submitted in this category. We would only ever ask for this level of proof if the submission is a finalist and is formally contested in writing, by a member of the community. Your formula would remain confidential, and we would provide a signed NDA.
The Art and Olfaction Awards and the Golden Pears™ are a program of The Institute for Art and Olfaction. All rights reserved.
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