Yes, we're late! But we are now accepting entries for the 2010 Prix Eau Faux, our contest to reward excellence in "creative fragrance writing", e.g., fake ad copy.
We have assembled a distinguished panel of judges to judge this year's contest, including Tania Sanchez of Perfumes: The Guide and several of us from Now Smell This (me, Angela, Christine, Erin, Kevin and Jessica).
The judges will select a group of semi-finalists, and then the readers will vote on a grand prize winner.
What's the point?
We love reading gloriously over-the-top fragrance ad copy. The ad copy that originally inspired our first contest back in 2008 was from By Kilian — in three short sentences, they managed to work in Faust, Rimbaud, Macbeth, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, Pharell Williams and Baudelaire, and then they opened a fragrance description with the wonderful phrase "Beneath the pseudoinnocence displayed by Bergamot from Calabria...". In the spirit of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (aka "The dark and stormy night" contest), we wanted to know if our readers could do even better. In 2008, they did pretty well: take a look at the finalists and the winner.
What to do:
Think of a name for your new perfume house and your first perfume. Write a SHORT paragraph introducing your new perfume house to the world, and then a SHORT paragraph introducing your debut fragrance.
Try to stick to 5-6 sentences total. Entries that are more than 8 sentences or 175 words will be automatically disqualified.
The best entries will be funny and pretentious and at least vaguely plausible.
The prize:
The winner gets a $150 gift certificate from our friends at Beautyhabit.
The winner will be informed (and the prize will be awarded) by email.
The rules:
You may enter as many times as you like.
Entries are to be sent via email to robin at nstperfume dot com (replace "at" with "@", dot with ".", and remove any spaces). It would help if you would put "Prix Eau Faux" in your subject line.
Include your entry in the body of the email (we won't open attachments).
Also include your name, and if you like, whatever pseudonym you'd like us to use should we post your entry online.
Entries must be original. We already know there is lots of funny ad copy out there, but please, write your own. Entries are to be text only: no images.
We will be accepting entries through the end of of March 2010. Semi-finalists will be selected in early April.
Questions? Post them in the comments.
TANIA is judging? *bites nails* Will you post some of her comments on the entries? Pretty please?
Also–I’m dying for you to have a separate contest sometime just for the graphics side of things. Or, hey — You Tube! Though it will be very hard to beat Mandom.
So glad to see the contest make a comeback!
Several people did suggest graphics, but here’s the thing: it’s pretty easy to check text entries to be sure they aren’t copies of already copyrighted material, it’s not so easy with graphics. That’s a headache, and I don’t think I have time to deal with it.
And nobody would agree to be a judge if they had to make comments, I’m afraid! All the judges do is select their favorite 3 entries.
Oh, I know you’ve got enough to do already, R. It’s just a desire, not a request. Same for the comments, though I do imagine eavesdropping on a discussion between the judges would be quite as entertaining as the entries themselves.
****cackling wildly already**** scrambling for pen and paper….
Have Nez a Nez not won this hands down before anyone started? I laughed so much at their copy, before Lucky Scent moderated it to something resembling descriptions of the perfumes, that I nearly did myself an injury.
Oh, I see …it’s supposed not to be a real company/perfume! Doh!
It would actually be much harder if we used real ad copy….too many gems out there.
Jiminy Christmas, that’s the truth! I think whoever writes the copy for By Kilian must laugh themselves to sleep at night.
Nobody but nobody will top Nez a Nez, no matter how fantabulous… because NaN is fo’ real. Are those descriptions not like stream-of-consciousness written by stoned people? Too funny.
This sounds great – I can’t wait to read the entries. Will you please put the semi-finalist submissions on NST? I know there will be some gems!
Of course we’ll post all the semi-finalists…the readers then vote on them to pick the final winner
If I can come up with an idea, I foresee this as a good joint husband-wife project. We first got together as a result of something equally over-the-top silly…I couldn’t believe a MAN would go along with that as he did. I was crying for 2 hours, I was laughing so hard. And if I can’t… I look forward to reading the entries of those who can. What fun!
Sounds like a fun way to go about it!
(Panics) Oh, no… oh, darn… which one of these flash drives did I put my PEF ideas on? *Aaaarggggh!* Must. find.
Oh, you’ve been compiling ideas? Smart lady. Wish I’d thought of that. Can’t remember any of my “brilliant” ideas.
Flash drives are pesky little things. I’m always losing them.
Same problem here. I’ve had five since I’ve started needing them. Last one I bought was this beautiful and expensive-for-what-a-flash-drive-can-cost thing of black leather and a magnetic clasp, thinking to myself, “No way can I lose something so nice!” Didn’t last 3 months.
I’m still laughing over last years (I think?) with the blossoms plucked from the furry buttocks of the snow leopard. Not sure if I can top that, but will gladly try. I love a good writing challenge.
It was 2008. We skipped last year because I was too busy moving NST to WordPress.
Oh, no…time for Eau Faux!!!
I thought I heard a bunch of whirring going on as the blog loaded up. Can’t wait to see the semi-finalists!
Me too!
Oh, this will be fun!!!
Hope so!
This is the first I’ve heard of the ‘Le Prix Eau Faux’ contest, so I clicked on the links read the semi finalists entries from the last one. I almost fell outta my chair!! They were SO creatively hilarious!! NST really does have the most funny & smart folks hanging around here.
Of course we do!
How fun! I can’t wait to do this again!
Good!