Flow's Grand

My name is Aubrey Legrand, and my business is Flo’s Grand, where we sell 100% soy wax candles and body products. We also host a number of events—candle‑making events or scent‑centric events—at the 7th Street Market or on location for groups and companies.

I think I’ve always been obsessed with smells. Good smells, bad smells. I was that kid who was always putting things to my nose to smell them, to check them out olfactorily. My earliest memory—I couldn’t have been more than six years old—was when someone gifted me perfume, a little bottle of perfume. I loved the way it smelled. I don’t think it was expensive, probably from the drugstore, but I sprayed the whole bottle on my whole body because I thought it smelled so good. I wanted to literally bathe in it.

I remember my mom coming in—she’s going to kill me for saying this—and telling me that I stunk. She said, “You smell terrible.” I was heartbroken. I thought I smelled amazing. But that was my earliest memory of coming across a smell I hadn’t smelled before, being intrigued by it, and wanting to dive deep into it.

I’m really excited because I get to be a scent artist in a way and tell a story through fragrance. I’m not a cook—I’m a candle maker. So I was thinking through how I could incorporate the smells of my childhood. I immediately started thinking about the church kitchen that I grew up in and would spend most Sundays in. I grew up in New York City, and my grandmother was a member of Greater Central Baptist Church. She would take me to church every Sunday, and we would spend the whole day there. Rain, snow, bitter cold—we were going.

You could smell it before you even got up to the church. You could smell the food the mother kitchens had started making: biscuits, some kind of meat—chicken baked, barbecued, or fried—and of course dessert, usually peach cobbler.

The candle I’ve made does not smell like chicken, but it has that savory sweetness of biscuits mixed with peach cobbler and a little thyme and rosemary to give hints of savoriness. It’s actually a two‑fragrance candle. The top represents the morning, and the bottom scent is the evening. It’s deeper, with sandalwood and musky scents. It burns down into what the evening would smell like in church when we would leave.

My business is, as I like to call it, a living legacy to my grandmother, Florine—everyone called her Flo. And I was Flo’s grand. She was such a prime example of joy and living in your joy. Born in 1922 in Blackshear, Georgia, during Jim Crow, she grew up to be a force. She was a business owner, a property owner, a nurse. She was everything I looked up to and wanted to be.

The ritual that lives with me as I build my business is centered around joy and the fulfillment I get from smelling things, but also the connection fragrance has for all of us—when we smell something curious, something new, or something familiar that takes us right back home.

We are located right in the middle of the 7th Street Market. I like to think of it as a little scent sanctuary. When you come into the space, you can smell all the candles. Whatever the seasonal candle is, I usually have it burning. Sometimes you can smell it throughout the market, but you can always smell it within the Flo’s Grand area. It feels warm and inviting. We even have a make‑your‑own potpourri station—a little scent playground where you can experiment with fragrances.

When we host events—most of them at the 7th Street Market—I like to think of them as a joy experience. We’re not just making a candle. We’re making a memory that will be sparked every time you smell the candle we made together. We always start with intention—how we want to feel when we burn the candle once it’s done. Some people say it feels therapeutic, like a reset, just going through that practice of intentionality. And while the physical product is the candle, people often make new friends or connections across the table. It tends to be a soul‑cup‑filling experience.

The thing that stays important for me in the work I’m doing is hard to describe because it feels bigger than the words. When folks tap into scent memory or scent creation, there’s a part of the brain that opens up. People dig deeper—into stories connected to fragrances, memories, or even new aspirations. Sometimes they smell something and say, “I want my everyday to smell like this.” It feels special. People tell me it’s an experience they’ve never had before, and I’m overwhelmed and proud of that.

I hope my legacy—for my children, grandchildren, and great‑grandchildren—is that they move forward with the same connection to joy that my grandmother gave me. Life is not easy. There are heartbreaking moments and unimaginable challenges. But joy—real joy—is not just happiness. It’s contentment and groundedness in knowing who you are, who you’re connected to, who your people are, who your ancestors were, and what they overcame. That knowledge gives you strength and reminds you that you’re allowed to have joy even when things are difficult.