ARTISAN CATEGORY QUALIFIERS

The Art and Olfaction Artisan Award honors excellence and vision in artisanal perfumery. The 9th Art and Olfaction Artisan Awards will be presented to two outstanding perfumes out of five finalists.

Note that there is an option to submit to the Aftel Award for Handmade Perfume as part of the Artisan category submission. If you wish to submit to Aftel Award, you will be considered BOTH for the artisan category AND the Aftel Award. Read on for more information about that, below.

The artisan category is for perfume houses that are owned or co-owned by the brand's primary perfumer. This perfumer wrote and initiated the submitted perfume formulation. The submitted perfume was then 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 approx. 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.

IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT THE ARTISAN CATEGORY: PLEASE READ BEFORE SUBMITTING

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 fragrance house input and production assistance with regards to making sure the formula is IFRA/EU compliant. To be fair to all, we therefore must allow this sort of feedback and collaboration with a fragrance house or compounding laboratory for ALL artisan submitters.

We acknowledge that sometimes a formula can change with fragrance house input, but we believe that if the perfumer who wrote the original formula also owns or co-owns (with a mininum 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 utlized 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 the brand that is releasing the perfume, and
+ Wrote and has legal ownership of the perfume formula

Everyone who submits to the artisan category should be prepared to provide proof of authorship of the formula, should any question arise about your status in this category. We would only ever ask for this level of proof if the submission makes the finals, and is contested in a formal way by a member of the community.