Katherine Growney’s career as a beauty editor at fashion magazines like ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar and Lucky brought her into constant contact with perfumers who were hawking their latest scents, sometimes including such tropical fragrances as pikake and ginger.

Trouble was, to Growney’s schooled nose, having grown up in Hawaii with the real thing, “I would get the product and it would smell nothing like the flowers because they never smelled the fresh flower before.”

With the fresh scents of puakenikeni, pakalana and jasmine seared into her scent memory, Growney wanted to give others the pleasure of discovering their true fragrance, and in 2007 she launched Saffron James Parfums, a luxurious scent collection that has grown to encompass five island-inspired fragrances, including eau de parfums ($85) and concentrated miniature rollerball-applicator perfume oils ($38) capturing the essence of the flowers.

“I spent so much time coming up with the right form because there are so many fragrances that you love immediately after you put it on your skin, but then it changes and smells different,” Growney said.

Scents last longer in the oil form, and doubling up with eau de parfum allows wearers to layer a favorite scent. Using a high percentage of essential oils also means the fragrance doesn’t turn quickly, allowing her to keep her scents phthalate-, paraben- and preservative-free.

Growney started with ‘Ume (ginger), Punono (puakenikeni) and ‘Lea (frangipane or plumeria) scents, and added Nani (jasmine) soon afterward. Her Ipo (pakalana) fragrance took another three years to develop, and she calls it a labor of love because of the complexity of its scent molecules. Although those who grow up here can recall the singular scent of pakalana, the olfactory system does not interpret a single compound, but the complex mix of odors that go into the scent, and Growney said pakalana registers high, at 142 compounds.

She put her storytelling skills to use in the packaging of the scents. The boxes are designed to look like antiquated Art Deco books, each bearing the story of the flower and its ties to Hawaii on the inside cover. The cover itself, in colors reminiscent of old-fashioned, organic dyes, has a koa design that also suggests a sense of place.

“It’s like going back in time to a point when Hawaii was being discovered by travelers on the first passenger ships and it was still covered with rain forest,” she said. “There’s a whole romantic quality that I wanted to capture. When you pick a fresh flower, its scent, its beauty is so magical, but it’s fleeting. You can’t keep it.”

Now that she’s on the other end of the marketing machine, taking her story to editors and the public, she’s intrigued with the choices people make. Here at home, she said she can’t keep Punono and Ipo in stock. In Los Angeles the preference is for Nani and ‘Ume. And in the middle of a New York winter, she was surprised to sell out of her ‘Lea fragrance.

“I don’t know if everyone was over winter and wanted something soft and light and reminiscent of spring.”

Saffron James Parfums are available in Hawaii at Nordstrom.