BIG PICTURE

Submissions are judged blindly in the artisan and independent category - as well as in the Newcomers Award. All submissions in these categories are tracked by a number, accompanied only by a short, anonymized creative brief that describes the intention for the scent.

The judges for the experimental award category do not review the projects blindly. This is because the projects often require supporting visual material, which often contain identifying information.

Judging the Art and Olfaction Awards is the most important part to get right. Without a healthy judging mechanism, our efforts would be pointless. Here's a run-down on how we approach the complicated task of judging perfume.

Review our code of ethics

We take the judging process very seriously, and ask all our judges to adhere to a code of ethics, which you can review here.

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AN IMPORTANT NOTE

The judging process for winners and finalist perfumes is conducted with the utmost objectivity, as it is carried out blindly, focusing solely on the scent and a short and anonymized creative brief. The identity of the submitted perfumes— including branding, naming, perfumer, creative director, country of origin, cost, and marketing approach—is concealed from the judges. This ensures that evaluations are based purely on the olfactory experience, and that the outcomes are determined by the fragrance's inherent qualities alone.

To reitirate: Non-olfactory aspects (including branding, design, marketing strategies, personal statements, political beliefs, opinions, social media presence, etc.) are not assessed. As such, any statements or beliefs expressed by the finalists and winners do not reflect the personal values or opinions of the organizers of the awards—or the personal values or opinions of the judges.

HOW WE JUDGE

Our Judges

For the simple reason that thoughtful people make good decisions, the first step to a fair judging process is picking fair-minded people to judge. For this reason, we take pains to get to know our judges before inviting them to participate. When we start the judging process, we ask the judges to sign off on our code of ethics, which states the principles of how we run the awards.

Please respect our judges' time and privacy - and the integrity of the awards - and refrain from contacting the judges about your submission.

Judging the Artisan and Independent Categories

The artisan and independent categories are judged blindly, in three rounds. The first round takes place at the Institute for Art and Olfaction in Los Angeles, the second round (semi-finalist) takes place at the IAO and remotely at the judges' homes and labs around the world. The final round (finalist round) takes place entirely remotely.

Preliminary Round

In the preliminary round, the judges come into the Institute for Art and Olfaction, where we have the submissions all prepared for them, in blind vials, accompanied by their anonymized creative brief.

The judges have as many sessions as they need to adequately assess the samples, and are instructed to revisit each sample several times, including during the dry-down. It’s hard work, but each judge pays particular attention to fairness and to giving every submission a fair and impartial chance. Each judge smells up to 150 perfumes, and all perfumes are assessed by at least 3 different judges.

Once the judges have all assessed and scored the perfumes, we average the scores. The top forty scoring perfumes in each category (artisan and indie) are pulled into the second round of scoring.

Semi-Finalist Round

The top forty scoring submissions in the artisan and independent category are sent in blond bottles to our semi-finalist judges, who smell every semi-finalist and assign them with a score. These scores are averaged with the preliminary round scores to assess the ten finalists in each category.

The five perfumes following the ten finalist perfumes are our honorable mentions. The ten top scoring perfumes in each category are our finalists, and go on to the third and final round.

Finalist Round

For the finalist round, we decant the 10 finalists in each category into blind vials, and send them, along with their creative briefs, to our finalist judges, who are dotted around the world. These judges are asked to assign a score to each perfume. Their scores are averaged, and the top scoring two perfumes in each category are the winners.

Judging the Newcomers Award

The Newcomers Award has a separate jury. These judges are provided with the ten top qualifying fragrances in the Artisan and Independent categories, after the preliminary and semi-finals judging rounds are finished.

As with the preliminary and finals round, these submissions are sent to the judges in blind vials, identified only by a number and accompanied by the submission's anonymized creative brief.

Judging the Experimental Category

For the experimental category, the process is very similar, except that the judges are aware of the artist's name and work, and have the opportunity to view supporting materials which often include images, video, or sound.

As with the other categories, the Experimental Category judges are asked to score the submissions numerically. These scores are averaged to provide a list of semi-finalists.

The judges then convene for discussion about the semi-finalists, and if there is not a consensus, they are asked to rescore. Those new scores are averaged to create the list of five finalists and the one winner.