This year’s covetable goody bag, officially titled the “Everybody Wins at the Oscars Nominee Gift Bag”, is being handed out for the 13th year by the Los Angeles-based marketing company Distinctive Assets.
This year’s extravagant bag worth over $160,000 – an amount deemed taxable by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The celebs nominated in the acting and directing categories will all be gifted with an assortment of pricey swag from Distinctive Assets, with the gifts ranging in price from $5 to $20,000.
Goods donated by 59 brands, the most expensive including art, fine wine, jewellery and luxury travel vouchers, are delivered in a box the morning after the awards ceremony to 20 nominees in the acting and directing categories who don’t take home a prize.
Top of the list in terms of dollar is a $20,000 gift certificate to have Enigma Life founder Olessia Kantor fly out for a personal meeting with each nominee “to discuss their 2015 horoscope, analyse dreams and teach them mind control techniques”.
This year’s giveaway reportedly also includes a luxury three-night stay in Tuscany ($1,500), a wildly expensive train ride through the Canadian Rockies ($14,500), a Reset Yourself lifestyle makeover package ($14,500) and a silver necklace engraved with the latitude and longitude coordinates of the Dolby Theater where the Oscars takes place ($150).
Oscar losers will be offered herbal tea lollipops and lean protein bars. Lest despondent actors are tempted to binge on their Live Love Pop healthy popcorn, the bags also contain portion-control plates.
Nor are celebrities encouraged to take any time out of their presumably gruelling fitness regimes, post-Oscars. For those whose new year’s resolutions are on the wane, there’s a PolarLoop 24/7 activity tracker and vouchers for personal fitness sessions with celebrity trainer Alexis Seletzky. Stars exhausted from the ceremony might welcome a quick fix in the form of anti-ageing products, facial repair cream, and acne treatment. Unfortunately, the anti-perspirant and Starlettos heel protectors come too late to save embarrassments on this year’s catwalk.
There’s a “glamping” trip ($12,500), posh French Mediterranean sea salts ($1,500), a Wellness 360 gift pack ($1,200), a Haze vaporizer ($200) and a year’s worth of Audi A4 car rentals ($20,000) thrown in too.
The goodie bags are distributed by Distinctive Asset and are not endorsed by the Academy. In 2006, the Academy voted to bring an end to them after an IRS agreement stated that specified recipients would have to pay taxes on them.
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