Logan Square festival brings home the bacon

Over 600 bacon lovers gathered at the Stan Mansion in Logan Square on April 10. Tickets to the second year of Baconfest Chicago, which became available in March, sold out in just 10 minutes.

Those who attended expected pork products galore and were not disappointed.

Beth Cummings, owner of Diffraction Fiber, an Etsy Web store, was one of the vendors selling bacon-influenced goods. Her "Tastes Like Bacon" pillow from her "Comfort Food" line was one of the non-food items available to purchase.

"It's a huge degree of love and you can extend it into all parts of your life," Cummings said. "And when you can't be eating bacon, it's nice to able to at least be sleeping on bacon." 

The pillows are made from Eco-Felt, a material made of 100 percent recycled plastic bottles that is environmentally friendly and machine washable.

Diffraction has been on Etsy.com for over a year and sells more than pillows. Most of Cummings' products are food inspired due to her adoration of cooking. Her latest creation are iron-on bacon patches, which can be used on many surfaces.

"On notebooks, aprons, tote bags, baby onesies, go wild," Cummings said. "You can turn your baby into bacon and you love your baby even more."

Another surprising pork-inspired product, Bacon by Fargginay, was testing two scents to get feedback for the world's first bacon inspired fragrance.

John Leydon, owner, has worked with eight different fragrance houses over the last nine years in his quest for the ultimate pork perfume.

"It's an allusive scent," Leydon said. "There are 11 pure essential oils so it's not only essence of bacon, it's a number of widely known citrus fragrances."

The scent, due out in the United States within two months and in the United Kingdom for Christmas, will be marketed at $38 a bottle in high-end retailers like Barneys.

Bacon Hot Sauce, another newly-developed product which launched at Baconfest, started off as an argument amongst friends who were eating eggs.

"Which is more necessary, bacon or hot sauce," questioned Peter Fishman, owner of Bacon Hot Sauce. His answer: "both."

The company, based in Mountain View, California, is selling its product online at baconhotsauce.com and is starting to look into distribution through stores.