Consolation Prizes

Image credit: Salma Hayek: Graham Whitby-Boot/AllStar/Globe Photos

HIGH-END HAYEK As a likely Oscar ''nonwinner,'' Salma will receive designer sunglasses, flip-flops, and a complimentary hotel stay

Does Salma Hayek really need $200 mink slippers? Well, need 'em or not, the Best Actress nominee, who's not favored to win an Oscar on March 23, will likely be getting a pair by Taryn Rose delivered to her home. And that's just one of more than a dozen items in a luxurious collection of swag valued at $20,000 that's being earmarked for all the losers in the Best Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, and Picture categories. (The producers of the losing Best Picture nominees will be the lucky recipients.)

You read that right: To soothe their pain, the losers are getting their very own basket of expensive goodies this year. Distinctive Assets (the company that put together this year's Grammy gift baskets), along with Front Desk Los Angeles, is coordinating the baskets, the contents of which read like P. Diddy lyrics -- i.e., heavy on the bling-bling.

Along with the fur footwear, the ''nonwinners,'' as Distinctive Assets spokesperson Lindsay Kelterer likes to call them (''No one is a loser in those categories''), can also look forward to, among other things: $200 Swarovski crystal flip-flops, $250 Vera Wang sunglasses, a $350 Philips micro stereo system, a $600 Invicta watch, and $4,000 Lasik eye surgery (yikes!).

Nonwinners will also have the chance to eat free at one of eight leading L. A restaurants ($100-$300), enjoy one of two hotels offering complimentary $1,200-$2,000 stays (the Four Seasons for Best Actress nominees, L'Ermitage for Best Actor contestants), or escape on an all-expenses-paid yacht trip for four valued at $2,000.

So much for the good old days of leaving the Oscar ceremony empty-handed.