The Art and Olfaction Award for ARTISAN perfumery

---

The artisan category of the Art and Olfaction Award honors excellence and vision in artisanal perfumery.  This category  is assessed blindly by a pool of judges from around the world. 

The artisan category is for perfume houses that are owned or co-owned (minimum 35% ownership) by the brand's 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 perfumer who wrote the submitted perfume's formula owns or co-owns (minimum of 35% ownership) the company that is releasing the submitted perfume.
• This perfumer directly wrote the initial perfume formulation of the submitted perfume.
• This perfumer has or shares creative control over branding, production, marketing and distribution.
• The company’s product development is contingent on the perfumer’s direct involvement, labor and oversight.

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:

• Owns or co-owns (min. 35% ownership) the brand that is releasing the perfume, and
• Wrote and therefore has ownership of the perfume 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.