THE AFTEL AWARD FOR HANDMADE PERFUME

The Aftel Award for Handmade Perfume is a discretionary award that will be given to one outstanding small batch perfume that was perfumer-created, in-house, with no use of outsourced compounding or expansion at any stage of the process. In other words, every aspect of the final perfume for sale must have been created through the direct labor and immediate oversight of the perfumer, then released under the perfumer's own brand.

We created this award to honour the community of devoted artisan perfumers who helped launch the awards in 2014, and to do justice to a vision of artisanal perfumery best elucidated by Mandy Aftel through her teachings, writings and creative practice.

Award qualifications:

+ The perfume's initial release was in a batch of 300 units or less, or is made to order.
+ The final perfume released for market was blended by the perfumer's own hand, and through his or her direct labor.
+ The perfume was released under the perfumer's own brand.
+ The perfume was not weighed or assembled in an external compounding house.

Note that this is not an award for naturals-only practices. Aftel Awards submissions can use natural, synthetic, and bio-synthetic materials.

The winner of the Aftel Award will be selected from the qualifying pool of artisan submissions, and decided by a separate panel of three judges. After going through Artisan Category judging, the five top-scoring and qualifying perfumes will be passed along to this panel, which will decide the winner at their own discretion. Judging will be anonymous.

HOW TO SUBMIT

To submit for the Aftel Award, submitters must submit each entry in the Artisan category, and select the additional fee option that states "I wish to be considered for the Aftel Award for Handmade Perfume". In the form, fill it out as normal and at the bottom be sure to tick the 'Aftel Award' box.

After going through Artisan judging process, the ten highest-scoring qualifying submissions will be sent along to a special jury for judging. Aftel Award submissions are judged blind, with only the statement of intent accompanying each perfume.

Note that to cover extra administration and judging, we required an extra small fee ($10.00 USD) to submit to the Aftel Award, above and beyond the Artisan Category fee ($85.00). You must select the "I wish to be considered for the Aftel Award for Hand Made Perfume" option AND tick the Aftel Award box in the form itself to be considered.