Phil Castle, The Business Times

Olivia Larson draws inspiration from a variety of sources. Memories of her childhood growing up in India. Imagining what it might be like to visit Monet’s garden in France or walk through a rain forest in Australia.

Larson combines the many aromas of those experiences — the spices, flowers and other plants — into the fragrances she creates at La Fleur by Livvy, the artisan perfumery she operates in Grand Junction.

She makes it her business, in fact, to create and sell perfumes, soaps and candles online and from her downtown shop. She’s gained recognition for her efforts in the process — most recently the New Luxury Award bestowed by the International Perfume Foundation.

Larson says her fragrances have won awards before, but the New Luxury Award is the most prestigious. La Fleur by Livvy was one of only two perfumers to win the award in that category and the only perfumer in the United States to do so.

“It was an incredible honor,” she says.

The award also should help in further promoting her fragrances, she says. “In my mind it’s pretty valuable. I think it’s a huge thing.”

New Luxury Awards were presented as part of the Barcelona Perfumery Congress in Spain. Larson says she attended the two-day event in November to not only accept the award and meet the other finalists, but also participate in a variety of workshops and display her products.

La Fleur by Livvy received the New Luxury Award for Jadon, a fragrance Larson says she created using raw ingredients from India. The Hindi word for roots, Jadon is made with basil, benzoin, cardamom, clove, frankincense, lemon, nutmeg, pink peppercorns, saffron, sandalwood, tonka bean and white lotus.

The award recognizes the efforts of perfumeries that focus on high-quality natural ingredients and make products in ethical and sustainable ways, she says.

Jadon is one of 23 fragrances Larson has created and grouped into collections that reflect India and other destinations around the world, pay homage to French artists and offer different fragrances for different times of day.

Larson also has created bespoke fragrances for customers, including a custom fragrance for the Molly Brown House Museum in Denver.

In addition to fragrances, Larson creates and sells soaps made with olive oil and candles made with beeswax.

Larson sells most of her products through her website, but also operates a shop on Main Street in downtown Grand  Junction.

Larson launched La Fleur by Livvy in 2013 in Basalt. She says she used to live in the Roaring Fork Valley and worked as a bookkeeper and office manager.

She subsequently moved to Grand Junction and relocated her perfumery. She operated for a while out of the Historic Lowell School on Seventh Street before relocating to the Main Street location. “I’m happy to be in Grand Junction and bring this to Grand Junction.”

Larson grew up in what’s now Kolkata in India and remembers the smells of her childhood growing up there. Fresh mint leaves, ginger and lemon were crushed into juice at vendor’s stalls. Various flowers bloomed at night. And a plumeria grew outside her grandmother’s bedroom window in the family home.

She says she’s always loved flowers and began experimenting with essential oils, flowers and other natural ingredients to create fragrances.

While she started out as a self-taught perfumer, she recently became certified by the International Perfume Foundation.

The process of creating fragrances starts with a concept and then trying different combinations of ingredients to provide what she says are top, mid and base notes — citrus, floral and wood scents, for example.

Larson says she’s used 30 ingredients or more to create a single fragrance. “It can get pretty complex.”

La Fleur by Livvy competes in what Larson says is a competitive marketplace. But her firm enjoys some advantages in using high-quality, natural ingredients combined in small batches. Artisan perfumeries offer products unlike those made by lager manufacturers, she says.

Looking ahead, Larson says she hopes to build on the success her products and her operations have enjoyed while also creating more bespoke fragrances. She also hopes to stage more events to attract customers — a workshop featuring teas to both drink and use in fragrances, for example. And she’ll continue, she says, to draw inspiration from a variety of sources.

La Fleur by Livvy is located at 300 Main St., Suite 101, in downtown Grand Junction. For more information, call (800) 825-8772  or log on to www.lafleurbylivvy.com.