After several months of judging, we're happy to say that the shortlisting judges' scores are all in for the Artisan + Independent categories.

As the 2017 finalists wing their way to the second round judges in the artisan and independent category (Luca Turin, Mandy Aftel, Sarah Horowitz-Thran, Helder Suffenplan, Michael Edwards, Christophe Laudamiel and Katie Puckrik) we will be hard at work letting everyone know their submission status, with a personal note. This will take a week or longer, so please be patient with us and keep an eye on your inbox!

If you can dispense with the personal note and just want to quickly know where your submission stands, email us at [email protected] and we'll let you know, in plain language.

As always, it was an extremely tough competition, with 250+ submissions coming in from 33 countries. The submissions were all judged blindly by the seven judges in each category, accompanied only by the anonymous creative brief submitted by the perfume team.

We will announce the shortlisted perfumes and projects in all three categories on March 23, 1pm CET, at Esxence in Milan. The announcement will be online - streamed directly from the scent fair on their website. More details about this will be posted on our social media pages, when the time is nigh.

To the folks who submitted: Thank you, as always, for sending us your work. We appreciate what you do and we are cognizant of the sheer volume of effort that it takes to produce a perfume. We did our very best to treat your babies with all the respect they are due.

- The Art and Olfaction Award submission team

(Scores for the Sadakichi Award are not due until March 3, so we'll be updating everyone in that category around then.)