The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Forbidden Love draws from a single, specific scene: a young Japanese man in Kyoto, watching a Geisha pass each night on her way back from the tea house. Her kimono carries orange blossoms, vanilla, and lilies laced with tobacco. Cypress trees. A full moon. Temples nearby, their incense catching the air. He loves her, quietly and without hope, for it is forbidden. Olivia Larson built this fragrance around that moment of restraint. Not the grand gesture, but the ache of watching someone walk past at the same hour, every hour, knowing nothing can come of it. The fragrance doesn't announce itself. It waits.
The most unusual material here isn't a flower, it's vodka. In perfumery, spirit accords can function as a cooling agent, adding lift and brightness without sweetness. Combined with green tea, this gives Forbidden Love a slight astringency that cuts through the richness of the white florals and tobacco. The cypress leaf, associated with Japanese temple grounds and ceremonial use, deepens that effect, lending a green, almost medicinal quality to the heart. It's an odd choice for a floral fragrance. It works.
The evolution
Forbidden Love opens bright and clean: lily absolute and Egyptian white lotus absolute pour out first, translucent and cool, with orange lending a brief citrus sharpness. The first hour reads almost aquatic, the vodka accord doing its work, a chill that feels like night air on skin. Then the cypress leaf arrives. Green, slightly bitter, temple-incense in character. By hour two, tobacco leaf begins to surface, not smoky, but warm, like incense that's settled into fabric. Vanilla and benzoin follow, softening everything into a creamy warmth. Around hour three, the oud emerges: subtle, resinous, not the aggressive oud of some compositions but a quiet depth that lingers. The green tea note carries through to the end, adding a final freshness that prevents the drydown from becoming heavy. By hour four or five, only a faint warmth remains, skin-warm, close, the kind of thing someone standing near you might catch without identifying.
Cultural impact
Forbidden Love earned Top Judges Selection Silver at the Artisan Fragrance Salon Awards in San Francisco in 2016, recognizing it among artisan fragrances with distinctive compositions. Within the La Fleur by Livvy catalog, it stands apart for its unusual note structure, the vodka accord and cypress leaf push it away from the house's typical romantic florals toward something more complex and contemplative.
