Blown Away (2019–…): Season 2, Episode 6 - Scents and Sensibility - full transcript

[Nick Uhas] We're back
at North America's largest hot shop...

to watch ten exceptional artists...

[blowing]

...fight fire with fire.

Because if they can survive
our fiery competition...

-[Nao gasps]
-[glass breaks]

...they'll win
a life-changing prize package.

That's, like, the ultimate dream.

-[Nick] Now, five remain...
-[woman gasps]

[gasps, groans]

...battling the clock
and the sweltering heat of our furnaces.



I'm Nick Uhas, and this is Blown Away.

Glassblowers, welcome to a brand-new day
in the hot shop.

Woo!

I'm just, like, "Guys, we're here still!"

[Andi] For me to still be
in the competition,

that, to me is winning.

[Nick] With every challenge,
you get one step closer

to becoming Best in Glass.

The smell of victory
will soon be in the air.

And, speaking of sweet scents,

some of the earlier glass vessels made
by the Romans were perfume bottles.

Over the course of 5,000 years,

perfume flacons have transformed
from really simple containers

to elaborate and ornate works of art.



Today your challenge is to design

one exquisite perfume bottle
in two different sizes.

Both need to have sculpted stoppers
befitting our gallery.

Perfume bottles are difficult.

This is gonna be hard.

I've made lots of perfume bottles.

I can work with that, yeah.

I haven't made a perfume bottle,
but I've made a lot of vessels.

To help Katherine evaluate the pieces
is luxury perfume designer...

-Michel Germain.
-[applause]

[Nick] Michel has spent the past 25 years
designing perfumes and bottles

and even has hand-blown vessels
created for his fragrances.

A successful perfume is more
than just the scent.

The bottle has to draw people in,

spark interest and tell a story.

You'll have five hours
to complete this challenge.

Your finished work will be evaluated
based on your design,

your technical skill
and your overall presentation.

The glassblower whose perfume bottle
does not blow us away

will be asked to leave the hot shop.

So make sure to pull out all the stops

on your bottles and stoppers.

Awesome.

Your time starts... now.

[tense string music playing]

So the finished perfume bottle,
it's kind of like a tilting hourglass.

You're not sure if it's gonna fall over.

My perfume bottles are gonna be
mimicking armored metal.

Scent is kind of like armor.

You put on your perfume,
and you leave the house,

and you're like, "Got this."

It might take five minutes.
It might take five hours

to make one of 'em. I don't freakin' know.

So, like, we're just being
a little ballsy now.

[marker squeaking]

[Nao] I'm making this piece inspired
by the Egyptian perfume bottle.

Egyptian perfume bottle literally
makes me so happy whenever I see it.

I used to love collecting them,

and that was one of my first moments
that I was drawn to glass.

Back then, people used rose petals
and lemongrass,

and I'm thinking if I could put
those elements inside of the bottle,

it might be a little more interesting.

[Chris] These will all be
different colored canes

that would go around the outside.

The idea
with the kind of rainbow colors here,

that it would be
a kind of androgynous bottle.

It could be for a man or a woman.

[Elliot] So I'm making, like,
a diving whale.

The dipper, to get the perfume out with,

is actually gonna be like a harpoon.

It's sort of like a statement
about the use of ambergris,

which is like a whale waste product.

It's used in perfumes.

I'm inspired by the process of perfuming,
which is extracting botanicals.

So I thought it'd be kind of cool
to make it look like beakers

with plants in it
that's in the process of extraction.

And my stopper is a smaller test tube
with plants kind of growing out of it

and then inside of it.

[clock ticking]

-[metal clanks]
-Let's do it.

[Cat] Are you ready?

[Andi] All right, now for the fun part.

[blowing]

[Chris] I'm afraid of everybody here.

I think everybody here
is a strong competitor.

Now that I'm final five,
I wanna freaking win.

[Andi] Now, with just five,
there's a bit more tension in the air.

It's definitely like,
"Oh, God!" [chuckles]

It's a huge honor
to be part of the top five,

and it'll be an even bigger honor
to be part of the top four in a few days.

[Elliot] Being eliminated now
would be a devastating disappointment.

[groans]

Someone's put color right in my ring.

I have, like, a little steel ring
that I'm gonna use

to hold a cup, basically.

Someone has put all of their color
in my ring and around my ring.

It's Chris, wasn't it?

[chuckles]

That's getting taken out and lobbed, mate.

It's a mistake.

I'm really trying to, like,
contain my frustration.

[blows raspberry]

[upbeat music playing]

[torch fires up]

[Andi] If I was a perfume,

I would smell like fresh-cut grass.

[Chris] If I was a perfume,
I'd smell like sweat...

and maybe old shoes or something. [laughs]

I would be a mix of horse poop
and patchouli.

[blowing]

[laughing] Just bottle it up.

If I were a perfume,
I would smell like sunshine.

[laughs]

[Elliot] Glass studios have
quite a distinctive smell,

and you know, I smell like burning paper.

I smell like the beeswax.

So if you could bottle that,
I've already got it on me, so... [chuckles]

[upbeat string music playing]

[Cat] We're glassblowers.
We smell disgusting all the time.

People call us, like,
the truck drivers of the art world.

We're probably a little grosser
and stinkier than most people.

[burps]

♪ Keeping it classy ♪

[laughs]

[Andi] This is in my wheelhouse.

I've designed perfume bottles
for luxury brands, perfumeries before.

I've made many perfume bottles,

but they're usually really minimal.

Leaves and stems.

This time, I really want my piece
to stand out.

I'm doing something more sculptural
than I normally would.

Hopefully I nail it.

[Nick] What should they be thinking about
when designing their perfume bottles?

Personally, I'd be kind of thinking
about who I was designing for.

Like, thinking about my audience
and their age,

their gender, their personality,
their lifestyle.

[Cat] The perfume that I'm making
would be for anybody.

Completely and utterly unisex.

I am doing something
called hot battutoing.

We're just using this tool to indent it.

Dope! Oh, my God, I love this.

Why have I not been doing
this this whole time?

[upbeat string music playing]

I don't know. What do you think? [laughs]

This is supposed to be a rose petal.
And I think it needs to be smaller.

The ancient Egyptians, 5,000 years ago,
made very small glass vials

for what we assume were fragrances.
They weren't blown.

This was before the advent of blown glass.

I wonder what that smelled like. [laughs]

What did the pharaoh smell like?

[Michel] Frankincense, myrrh.

Some of these ingredients
go back to biblical times, right?

I'm feeling this one out, really.

I haven't done this shape before.
I haven't made a whale.

I'm being ambitious in every piece.

And some people might be
slightly more reserved,

but I'm trying to be ambitious.

-So it's side to side, okay?
-Yeah.

The drill has a tungsten electrode
coming out of it that's slightly sharp.

[drill whirring]

And tungsten is a metal
which doesn't stick to glass.

Okay, flash.

It just goes... [mimics drill]
Okay. [blows]

Nice hole. All right, quick flash.

Yes!

Just like that.

I'm making the bigger one first
so I don't run out of juice.

[Nick] Michel, why are we having them
make two different sizes?

Well, first of all, perfume bottles
are typically made small

because fragrance is very expensive.
And so that's why we have the small size.

The large size is called a giant factice
that we use

for display in windows
to capture interest.

So, like, one's a billboard
and one's functional.

Correct.

It's a little bit more draining,
doing this sort of size.

But it's not too big.

It's very difficult
to make two identical pieces

because every time, it's different.
Everything can go wrong.

We have to think about technique.

Even though we are making
exact same items,

if it's different sizes,
we have to use different technique.

It came out a different shape
than I wanted.

[Andi] It's not an easy challenge.

You know,
making leaves, they're so organic.

So how do you do that
identically, repeated?

This works for the small.

The large,
we might have to do differently.

With a shape like this, identical,
it's not really on the cards, you know.

Slight differences in where the fins
and the ridges are.

I can deal with that.

I hope the evaluators can deal
with it. [chuckles]

[Andi] Okay. We've got color frit.

[Nick] Does the color of the bottle change
the way people perceive the scent?

Yes. Like, if you look at,
you know, a nice color like blue,

it would imply a fresher fragrance.

If you're into warmer colors,

it would imply a richer,
more long-lasting fragrance.

We're going straight black.

Yes, girlfriend!

I really want this bottle
to have a sensuality to it.

Doesn't matter what your sex is,
you wanna feel sexy.

Good work, I love it. Yas!

[Michel] What is Chris doing right now
with that glob of glass?

He's made, basically, a tube of glass
on the end of his blowpipe...

[Michel] Yes?

...and is sucking the glass up
like a giant straw.

Oh, there's the color.

[Katherine] He's filling that tube
with solid, clear glass

and then it's got the color
on the exterior.

And then I think he's gonna stretch it out
into long canes

that will then be cut up
to make a pattern.

It'll look like wider bands of color,

so it's really...
It's just an aesthetic effect.

[Chris] I mean the risk is sucking up
hot air rather than glass.

[inhales]

[Elliot] Seeing the ladle of glass
brought over

and just sucking it up out of there.

It was cool, yeah.

[Chris] I spend all my time blowing glass.

I don't mind to suck a little bit,
you know.

There's plenty of people
who say I suck anyways, so...

[laughs]

[tense music playing]

[Chris] It's so hot.

[gasps] Ow. [inhales sharply]

Oh, man, that's hot!

I burned myself.

The punty was so ripping hot

that I just burned my entire hand on it.

-It's all right. [chuckles]
-Are you okay?

Yeah, it's just... I just need
to cool it down for a minute.

I'm not stopping.
I'm not taking 15 minutes...

because I don't want to lose 15 minutes.

-I will live to blow another day.
-[metal clanks]

Two hours left!

[Cat] Thanks, Chris!

I'm working on the harpoon.

I'm feeling good.
I'm having a whale of a time.

[Nao sighs] This is really bad.

It's been two hours,
and I haven't finished anything.

Right now, I'm not freaking out,

but if I keep making mistakes,
then I have to start freaking out.

[Chris] Everything's a struggle.

None of this is the shape I wanted.

You'd think that we'd be getting better
at managing our time,

but I think we're becoming more ambitious,

and the competition is pretty intense.

So everyone's trying to outdo each other.

I have to compromise or, like,
quickly find another solution, so...

Or cry. I could cry.

[laughs]

[Andi] Good.

How's your perfume bottle design coming?

It's a lot of parts.

Perfume bottles, they're so beautiful
when they're really simple,

but I wanted to make something
a little more conceptual.

And I feel like I know what my voice is,

but I'm also kind of learning
how to express that

in a way that kinda straddles the line

between art and design
a little bit better.

Okay. You still have a lot
to finish today, so...

-I do. Thank you.
-All right, I'll you get goin' on it.

[Cat] Perfect!

I think it's important to go
against the standards of, like,

"Well, it's perfume, so it's for a woman.

So it's gotta have sparkles on it.
And it... Maybe it's pink."

I've, like, dated guys who love patchouli

and girls who love wearing men's colognes,

so I want something
that's not just a clear thing of glass,

that still makes you feel, like,
powerful and sexy when you put it on.

And then flash!

[glass clattering]

[Nao] It's not my best day today.

You know, things aren't even.
Like, not finishing very well.

The rose petal is basically extra chunk
of glass that is inside,

and it changes the heat so much
that everything is not going symmetrical.

I don't have time to remake.

It's only gonna make me stressed out,
so I'd rather focus on something else.

I don't mind presenting something
that I made not perfect.

But if I give up,
if I put pipes down and walk away,

I will be very disappointed.

-[Katherine] You won the last challenge.
-Yeah, I know!

You can feel good about that.

I feel good about that,
but at the same time,

it doesn't mean that I will stay
this time, you know?

Yeah, yeah. What's your motivation
for being here?

-[Nao] Motivation?
-Yeah.

A lot of people feels like fear
of challenging themselves

or getting out of their comfort zone,
and I'm all about it.

I'm just here to send a message out there.

And really embrace
being out of your comfort zone?

-Yes, exactly.
-[Katherine] Right.

[Nao] Ooh, whoa. Hot.

Woo, woo!

-[clock ticking]
-There's only 30 minutes left!

-Yeah, thank you.
-Oh, no!

-It's nuts!
-Little bit rushed now.

[Chris] It's so colorful.
Colorful garbage.

I have a piece that...

I would say was close to a disaster.

I don't feel like it's representative

of my capabilities to make refined glass.

I doubt that I'm gonna have anything close
to what I was planning on having.

If I don't win,
I would hate to let my son down.

It's hard to leave him behind for weeks.

He's never taken too much of an interest
in what I do,

but he's rooting for me.

[Cat] I miss my boyfriend! [chuckles]

I'm missing everything.

I'm missing my dog
more than my boyfriend,

but that's because he's like
my security blanket.

I love him so much.

[Nao] Cute! [chuckles]

I miss my cat. [laughs]

I wake up
and she just jump onto my belly.

She's like, "Meow!"
She's happy I'm awake.

So you have 60 seconds!

-Oh, my God!
-What?

[Katherine] Get those things
in the annealer!

All right.

Hands underneath.

It's gonna be, like, to the wire.

[bangs, metal clanks]

You wanna grab it?

-Yep.
-Lovely. Okay, let's go.

[mimics fanfare]

[Elliot] Quickly!

Lovely jobly.

-Boom! We did it!
-[woman 1] Whoo!

-Well done.
-[woman 2] Yep.

All I can think is,
"I wish I had more time."

[Andi] Great. All right, that works.

I'm so glad this is over.

[Chris] What a nightmare.

[sighs]

God.

[introspective piano music playing]

[Elliot] So the challenge is to make
a perfume bottle in two sizes.

I hope the evaluators see
that even though it's a statement,

it'll work as a perfume bottle.

[Chris] I hope the evaluators see
that there's a humble bottle

with a kind of modern aesthetic.

Five thousand years of tradition

and you can still innovate.
That's pretty remarkable.

[Cat] Wanting to feel sexy and comfortable
in your skin is valid.

I hope that
the evaluators don't see the piece.

I hope they feel the piece.

[Nao] I hope evaluator can see the story
that I was trying to tell

and the risk that I took
to create this piece.

[Andi] I'm bringing something to the table
that they haven't seen before.

I'm bringing a fresh perspective
that is unique in this world.

And not a lot of people know
how to do that.

[Nick] Well, it looks like we have
our perfume counter all laid out here.

-[Katherine] They pulled it off! Yeah.
-[Michel] They did. I'm very impressed.

[Nick] So these are Nao's bottles.

It's inspired by early Egyptian perfumes
and the natural herbs used to make them.

-It's very pretty.
-Mm-hmm.

[Michel] What I think is really special
about this design

is the petal inside the glass.

The red rose,
which in the world of fragrance,

it's the number one ingredient
used in all perfumes.

They look really thick for petals.

They do. I feel like
there could've been a bit more finesse.

She maybe just didn't leave herself
enough time.

How did Nao do
pulling off two identical bottles?

[Katherine] Not bad.

I wouldn't say
either of these are great, unfortunately.

But they're pretty comparable.

[Nick] These are Cat's bottles.

Cat created a unisex perfume bottle

by combining a feminine shape

with a masculine texture.

I would actually say
it was quite the other way around.

[all laugh]

[Katherine] I'm with you on this.
I'm not sure I understand that

to be a feminine shape.

[Michel] Certainly the color,
the matte black

takes you in a masculine category,

and we don't get to see the fragrance
in this case.

And there's something magical
to be able to see the glittering liquid.

[Katherine] I don't know
if she's done a great job

of replicating the same bottle
on both scales here.

You know,
this one is very much tilted out.

That one's got a subtle tilt,
but I feel like

either they both should be titled

-or they both should be straighter.
-Right.

[Nick] These are Elliot's bottles.

It's a statement against the practice
of killing sperm whales

in order to use their oils
to make fragrances.

Does that still happen?

-No, it doesn't.
-Okay.

See, I think it's done really well.

It's super cool that you can see
the liquid on the inside.

[Michel] It's very pretty.
The blue color is just a wonderful color.

[Katherine] From a technical standpoint,
these are really well done.

I think he has done also a great job

of mimicking the same thing
on both scales.

He's really achieved some nice realism.

The whale tail,

the little blobs of ambergris
on the stoppers.

Yeah, it's very creative.

[Nick] Here are Andi's bottles.

[Katherine] I feel like Andi maybe
could have pushed herself

on making these leaves a little
more delicately.

They're just really thick and clumpy.

Looks like it was made on a waffle iron.
That's where my mind went.

[Michel] One of the things
that is really extraordinary

is the amount of glass in these vessels.

Very thick-bottomed glasses
express a lot of value in a bottle.

-[Nick] ♪ Be careful ♪
-[Katherine] I will!

-You might have to use two hands.
-Yeah.

Oh!

-Okay.
-That's a very heavy stopper, though.

It's very unwieldy.

I imagine that one is even worse,
so I'm not gonna bother.

-Yeah.
-[laughs]

[Nick] These are Chris's bottles.

I think there's some beautiful clarity
in this glass.

You would see the fragrance so well.

And then you've got
this rainbow of colors,

which is a really nice touch
that your eye is attracted to.

[Katherine] Chris has done
something challenging here

by picking up
these individual bands of color.

It's a big risk doing that

because it kinda lives
or dies on how well you do it.

And he's kinda concealing back here,
like, gaps in the cane.

And even on this bottle, it looks like

there might be places
where he was missing cane.

-Yes.
-Oh.

[Katherine] I'm sure he wasn't happy
with how this went,

but probably
just because of time constraints

he had to kind of live with that.

Well, I have a sense...

See what I did there?

That this is going to be
a very interesting elimination.

[laughs]

[tense music playing]

[Cat] The amount of skill that's here now,

it's gonna be like teeny tiny things
that send you home.

I haven't won a challenge yet.
I really wanna win a challenge.

I think it's really important
for my status here

to be counted as a threat.

[Elliot] I'm starting to think
that I want to win now.

At first, I just wanted
to sort of show what I can do,

but now I wanna win.

We asked each of you
to create two identical vessels

to hold your signature scent.

I kinda get the feeling that a lot of you
maybe underestimated

the difficulty of the challenge.

And it seemed like, for many of you,
five hours wasn't enough time.

[Nick] Chris.

I found your direction interesting,
very modern.

But I can see that you had trouble
with the cane

on your smaller bottle.

I maybe miscalculated
how long it would take me

to refine something like that.
I would love to have another hour.

[laughs]

Can I have it?

[all laugh]

Me, too.

Thanks, Chris.

[Nick] Andi.

I appreciate the aesthetic
and your thinking behind it.

I feel like the leafy parts,
you could've refined that a little better.

They seem a little chunky
and crude and thick.

I don't think they have the delicacy
that they could have had.

Cat.

It's a completely opaque bottle.

Part of a great bottle design

is getting some little view
of that golden liquid inside

that really fuels the imagination.

You might have missed the mark
a little bit.

[Cat] So, like,
just do a lot better next time

'cause, like,
what you got here just sucks.

[Nick] Elliot.

[Katherine] I was really impressed
with how well you replicated the form.

You did a great job of making

these sort of small and large versions
of the whale.

Nao.

I must tell you
that you really captivated me

with the rose petals,
and I thought it was very creative

the way that you inserted them
inside of the bottles.

The execution is not near as nice
as I wanted,

and I wish I had two more days
to figure that out. [laughs]

I think you know what you tried to do
is very challenging.

That one technique in particular,
you do it once,

and then you learn a ton
about how to do it better the second time.

Thank you, artists.
Please give us a moment to discuss.

[tense music playing]

I'm not really sure
how it's gonna play out.

I'm afraid that I'm going home,
just like in most challenges.

I got my butt whooped.

I'm pretty sure
that I'm the person going home.

There was one artist today
whose bottles weren't just bottles.

Their pieces told a clear story
and made a strong statement.

Best in Blow goes to...

-Elliot.
-Yeah.

Thank you.

I'm feeling good. Three wins is good.

I'm learning that I can actually

have competitiveness in me in a small way.

It's like this. Just a little bit.

As far as who's going home today...

To be honest, the rest of the pieces
were pretty disappointing.

They all had flaws.

Oh.

Well, just the worst.

[Katherine] You guys have to manage
your time better.

You have to flex your creative muscles,
and you really gotta blow us away.

If you all had the opportunity
to do it over,

I would hope that you would do better.

Chris.

Nao.

Cat.

Andi.

You're going to get that opportunity.

No one is going home.

[bleep] everything.

Oh, my God.

Great.

I feel so relieved.

Tomorrow's another day.

And you'll have another chance
to blow us away.

It was great because everyone got to stay,
and that helped me enjoy my win more.

[laughs]