Here they are, the finalists for the 2008 Prix Eau Faux, our contest to honor creative fragrance writing or "faux ad copy" (you can read about the contest here). Thank you again to everyone who took the time to enter! We had 55 entries, and the judges (me, Angela, Kevin, Erin and Jessica from Now Smell This, Marina from Perfume Smellin' Things and Katie from Scentzilla) have whittled it down to 8 finalists.
In order to make this as fair as possible, I won't post the names of the entrants until after the winner is selected, and I respectfully ask that the entrants not "campaign" for votes here or elsewhere...just let the best entry win. Votes will be taken through the end of the day Wednesday, and I'll announce the winner on Friday.
Jezebel by House of Hades
Style, stilettos and strangers in the night.
House of Hades conjures up Jezebel – a perfume out of this Underworld.
A lusty interpretation of paradise lost, long lost...
The perfect scent for a good girl gone bad, and working it!The smell of hell, the fragrance of fire – this true trident of scent rides on waves of moonriped blackberries, devilishly roasted almonds and coal black coffee in top. Among the middle notes roars fragments of flaming red chili and vicious vanilla with danger musk, Luciferian leather and thunderstorm helix ruling the olfactory bottom.
Jezebel. Not heaven scent – born to raise smell.
Leopard Blossom by Solid Brown
Once every century, in the year of the flaming blue yak, the nuns of the Tushi Lumpo monastery gather their herd of miniature Himalayan snow leopards to feed them candied lotus blossoms in ambergris. At dawn of the third day, the nuns gently waken the slumbering beasts, and quickly lifting their tails to heaven, pluck the aromatic jewels from the pink star nestled in the deliciously furred buttocks of the mountain cats. This sacred essence is distilled in rice brandy to make the legendary Skan-Kah-Eh elixir, reserved for the rejuvenation of ruined potentates, but for a limited time offerred in a carved amythest pendant shaped like a leopard tail.
Solid Brown is dedicated to the preservation of indigenous natural scent miracles! (Five percent of all sales are donated to treat injuries sustained by nuns during the harvest.)
Anomie by Manqué
The eyes, piercing… the jaw, chiseled… the countenance, commanding. But the ego? Unsatisfied. Yearning, condemned to the pursuit of an impossible goal. Throw down your mask, for this is your true face: Comedy… Tragedy… Comedy?... Anomie.
Casting away the top-heart-base progression of traditional perfumery, Anomie's development boldly issues forth in the shape of a Möbius strip: lemon, bergamot, and nutmeg slide into tobacco, patchouli, vetiver, leather, driftwood, morningwood, synthetic tears, and an ozonic emptiness accord, completing the loop—now cunningly reversed—with nutmeg, bergamot, and lemon. The effect is a haunting revival and re-revival of essences, the olfactory equivalent of listening to Piaf's Non, je ne regrette rien on the old Crosley, feeling the soul stabbed anew with each repetition, the depths of the heart plumbed: Is there a bottom to this pit? Non.
Available as 50ml EDT, alcohol-free deodorant, ultra soothing shave balm, soap-on-a-rope, and super-foamy shimmering shower gel.
IF by Parfums Verité
Announcing The Olfactory Future
Welcome to the New World of Parfums Verité, and a new era in fine fragrances, signaling the end of Modern perfumery and the launching of the Postmodern ethos and aesthetic. No familiar points of reference will be found in our exclusive line of unisex, abstract “emo-scents” that propel the imagination into the future.
May we present our vanguard offering, IF…, an homage to avant-garde British cinema inspired by the boundary-breaking film characters of Malcolm McDowell. Synthetic molecular compositions and natural animalic extracts dovetail symmetrically in an atmospheric evocation of the feelings of fear, anxiety and alienation so prevalent in this iconic actor’s early body of work. If you desire others to be drawn irresistibly by your personal magnetism and then strangely repelled when they become too close, this is your ideal signature fragrance. $325 for 50 ml Eau de Parfum, $125 for the body crème, $95 for the scented candle, specially formulated to burn with a steel-blue flame.
Then by Marron, E.
Legendary war correspondent-turned-iconoclast "Nose" for many Parisian perfume houses, Eleni Marron, announced today that she is launching her own perfumery, Marron, E., with a new fragrance called Then. Marron describes Then as "the essence of a poet's nostalgia, the homesickness for a home to which one cannot return, a home which no longer exists, or perhaps never existed..."
Then, an original fragrance by Marron, E., recreates the multileveled exploration of a long-abandoned sunken garden "somewhere in Europe". Notes of freshly ironed linen, wood hyacinth, lichen-covered stone, and birch bark give way to the lushness of wild thyme, fraises de bois, and shadowed ferns, "all bound by the thinnest bracelet of vetiver". Eleni Marron, the creator of this heartbreakingly lovely perfume, invites you to descend the ancient stone staircase, into Then.
Heaven sings to the dandelion by Droplets of Ecstacy
Droplets of Ecstacy
At 16 years, Gerhardt Entshuldigung – a prodigy of exquisite taste - escaped the noisy call of the great perfume mansions of Paris to voyage alone through The Orient. Drowning himself in the eternal truths of isolated ceremonies, he - alone among occidentals - uncovered the secret of composting scent that inebriates the being and explodes the soul. DoE bring Gerhardt’s doings to you.
Introducing our first scent:
Heaven sings to the dandelion
Stung to madness by the light of stars, roses tremble, aching to be seduced. Husked Amber caresses with honey-dipped fingers, but it is Sandalwood, striding into the Garden in all his bronzed perfection, who calms the petals and entices them to the depths. Be still, he murmurs. J’arrive.
Tant Pis Eau Légère Eté 2008 avec Mango Version 6 by Le House of Pain Blanc et Mal de Tête Biolabs
Produced in limited numbers and barely available to a privileged few, Le House of Pain Blanc et Mal de Tête Biolabs is proud to present a new line of perfumes, starting with the enchanting Tant Pis Eau Légère Eté 2008 avec Mango Version 6. Our search for world peace and personal prosperity led to the creation of this perfume for the woman of today who is audacious enough to know exactly what gender she is, and yet sober enough to remember she forgot her skirt. To be permitted to adopt our perfume have your lawyers contact us with a chart of your ancestry showing all inherited titles and your place in the Peerage, along with a certified cheque.
Glittering shreds of platinum credit cards swirl like spiritual enlightenment on the path to rehab through our debutant perfume, Tant Pis Eau Légère Eté III avec Mango Version 6. The elite top notes feature a special blend of unscented hothouse flowers with a faux English accent of tender baby mango along with some other fruits that no one ever actually eats. Le bourgeoisie tone of the middle notes is created from our patented molecules of SUV gasoline fumes, plastic patio furniture, and plug-in room deodorants, all resting solidly on a musk base of sweat meticulously collected from real working members of le proletariat. Wear it and feel...affected!
Cauli's Flower by Green Goddess
Designer Bella Ruse, recently discharged by Dulco-Luxe International, has coupled with perfumer Cole Stanislaw and mustered a collection under the Green Goddess label: Cabbage Rose, Cabbage Patchouli, and their premiere fragrance, Cauli's Flower.
Cauli's Flower
From the mists of pestilent Greece erupts the legend of Cruciferous, a god bedeviled by the aromas socialized in the folds and pleats of vestal Cauli's gossamer gown. Wanting only to drink in the vapors issuing from the maiden's alabaster raiment, Cruciferous dispossesses himself of his other sensory faculties. Now you can relive this crippling milieu with the man in your life as you baste in Cauli's buttery veil. Within minutes its clarified piety succumbs to the spicy stippling of hoary pepper and the percolating delinquency of rosacea paprika as the spices insinuate themselves and gambol to the crux of Cauli's lily-white floret. A facsimile of Cruciferous and his virgin, showing the god's gasping, eyeless face, traumatized by estrus and listing against Cauli's rumpled skirt, festoons the opaque, hobnail, milk glass bottle, which is arrested within a fiercely convoluted Carrara marble base.
Your pick?
If only Dan Ackroyd (as Leonard Pinth-Garnell) could read these aloud! Exquisitely awful! Astonishingly so! Seriously–congrats to all the writers–these are all over-the-top clever and hilarious!
oh. my. god. I was giggling from the start, but by the time I got to Tant Pis I had to set my coffee down for risk of spilling it.
I love the way the entries cover so many of the more familiar sins.
General comments:
1) They're too intelligent. I think a couple of these should be d/q'd on the grounds that they make sense, sort of. I feel like the mark of a true faux is its precious incomprehensibility, and put that in your hookah and smoke it.
2) For serious, as my 13YO says … if you saw these on some website, aren't they totally believable? I think the Solid Brown might give me pause, though. In more ways than one.
3) I'm a little sad not to be furnished with a river of molten notes (a molten river of notes?) from each one, but probably a good choice on your part.
4) heaven sings to the dandelion. Mobius. stop.you.are.killing.me. How will I ever choose?
LOL — perfect! We'll see if we can get him to do an audio track next time
M, On the “too intelligent”, I think this was way harder than it looks — might actually be much easier to write funny ad copy by accident, as it were! Some people did list notes, but most didn't, maybe because we asked everyone to keep it short?
Oh my goodness, I'm so torn. How much fun this must have been for all of you to choose the finalists.
I can't vote yet, I have to think it over. Its between Tant Pis and Heaven Sings to the Dandelion (which is the funniest name ever.)
What an amazing job by all, though. Intelligent Humor, so very important. Fragile comic sentences crafted to within an inch of their lives – brilliance.
Oh- lol, I can't decide!
Humor is good, always! We should perhaps time this to end in mid-January, when personally I need it the most
You have a couple more days
Laughed the whole way through the entries. What a brilliant bunch. This won't be easy!!!!
hahahahahahaha! I'm dying here! Congrats to all the finalists – and to everyone who submitted an entry! These are fabulous; how will I ever choose?
Me, either! I nearly fainted laughing! Try to explain to your male, good' ol boy, slag-shovelin' customer (btw-March, there's your 'molten river' for the day!) why you are snorting into the phone like a stopped-up cat! That'll teach me to sneak a peek at the blog during work, dangit!
All excellent – choice is a blasted thing!
It was so very difficult to choose. They are all marvelous. Bravo to one and all.
Poor nuns.
Oh, man… So funny. On so many levels. And, of course, so hard to choose. I was torn for the longest time between the Tant Pis (Mal de Tête, indeed) and the Malcolm McDowell postmodernism that is IF.
Thanks to all the participants and to NST – great fun!
“Be still, he murmurs. J’arrive,” had me laughing for a long time. These are all really great.
These are GOOD !! all of them.
Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh.
Oh my god!
Ok now I have to pick a winner…
I am torn between a couple….
But I'll follow Robin's advice and wait a little before voting!
“Gerhardt Entshuldigung”–hahaha!
I'd say that nails not only the contest but the entire industry. Go Dandelion!
Hey, not going to answer everyone separately, but thanks to everyone who has voted & commented, and glad everyone found this fun!
My thoughts exactly. “Sober enough to remember she forgot her skirt” left me gasping for air.
Mwahahaha! “Leopard Blossom”…”Mobius strip”……”Cole Stanislaw” – such creativity! I had a very hard time deciding on a favorite!
I'm still laughing. OMG. . .Entschuldigung, which means “Excuse Me” in German, was just hysterical. Tant Pis. . .I can't catch my breath. “J'arrive” . . .oh, mercy! These were incredibly wonderful! Congratulations to all of you!
These were incredibly brilliant. I am sure if they were all printed as if they were real perfumes and if you offered to take money, there are people who would buy. I laughed really hard while reading some of these. The fund for the injuries to the nuns, “Luciferian” leather, roses trembling? It's all too much and too funny. Tant pis with the odor of plastic patio furniture??!!! oh my god, these are all too good.
i'm sorry, but as soon as i read leopard blossom it was all over. i did my best to give the others a fair reading, but, helas, the tale of the tail and the nuns had me undone.
of course, they are all wonderful and better than most of the vrai ad copy swirling around out there. well done, everyone!
This is why I love this blog so dearly — everyone is so damn witty! They're all so good it's going to be nearly impossible to choose. The image of Sandalwood Personified did actually make me splutter coffee on my keyboard.
Ah, yes… Leopard Blossom by Solid Brown. I'm quite sure it's truly an unforgettable scent, as I have had the distinct pleasure of indulging in a very similar fine fragrance, with similar notes, over the past several weeks. What sillage! Although I do think the nuns should be getting a bit more of a kickback for the injuries they've sustained. I can only imagine what a difficult job they must have!
Thanks for reopening the poll – I thought I'd missed my chance! It was SO HARD to choose, they are all so funny! I am not so secretly relieved to not be in the running, we have some killer writers among us! I'm a lover, not a writer!
*been totally missing stuff, since we switched to explorer 7 at work I can't read the blog on lunch break anymore!
Hey, glad you got to vote, but don't understand why you can't read the blog at work — according to my stat software, the majority of my readers are using explorer 7 (?)
This is too funny and thanks so much to Luckyscent and NST, for giving us some really positive stuff to look forward to.
Ah, I was away in Sacramento on business for the last 6 days and so didn't get to vote.
However, I think “Anomie by Manqué” is a sublime work of true GENIUS! Several of the others were terrific as well. This contest was great fun.
I don't think it's explorer itself, just something to do with the new settings. (I get weirdness from lots of things now) But I can't exactly go to the IT department and say, “hey, make it so I can look at non-work related sites at lunchtime”. LOL!