Creativity is cooking up inside a shared incubator space on Nels Anderson Place in Bend.

Brightly colored bottles in hues of pink, yellow and green mark the product line of CBD Fountain, a year-old business in Bend that sells organic, vegan cannabidiol-infused products that help with pain, anxiety and wellness, said Suzy Hardy, the company co-owner. The products come in creams, pills, tinctures or vape pens.

A former actress and screenwriter who became a massage therapist, Hardy stumbled on the CBD business when she needed an organically made product to help her with back pain caused by an old high school injury. But the products never smelled good, she said.

“I turned from an old athlete to an old lady (who) couldn’t get out of a chair without using my hands to push myself up. It was awful,” Hardy said. “I went to doctors and acupuncturists. Since then I’ve spent my whole life looking for something beyond western medicine.”

Hardy talked with The Bulletin about building a CBD product company from the ground up. Her responses have been edited for length and content.

Q: How did you develop your products?

A: I was always interested in natural healing and wellness. I always wanted to work for myself. I always believe the body can heal itself if you give it what it needs. My products are designed to smell good and not be too herby and organic. My goal is to keep them as natural as possible. I really like interesting scents. I started with the lotions that smelled good and moisturized well and that also took away pain and made you feel good. It was a process of mixing and seeing what smelled the best.

Q: What are the uses of CBD products that you offer?

A: They’re still discovering the science behind it, but our products are good for pain relief, sleep aid, inflammatory and auto-immune diseases. CBD helps your body fix itself. We primarily distribute in Oregon, on our website, fairs and shows. Several stores carry our products. I tell people to rub it on where it hurts and then go walk away and come back and tell me if you feel better.

Q: Where do you get your CBD?

A: We currently use industrial hemp grown in Grass Valley, Oregon, to make our CBD products. We are about three weeks from harvesting our own industrial hemp on 20 acres in Central Oregon and will extract the oils in our own lab.

Q: What did you do before you created CBD Fountain?

A: I was a massage therapist, and I have a food podcast called “The Food Heals.” I went to school for massage and healing, got my degree in psychology and I learned about energy work, which opened my eyes. This has always been my sphere that I’m passionate about. We began officially about a year ago after we moved here.

Q: How did you come up with the name?

A: The name is really important to me. When we were thinking of a name, I came up with 15 different names. This one out of all of them represents, youth, flowing water, health, vitality, and CBD flowing like a fountain.

Q: What are your plans for the future?

A: We are rebranding a bit to be a little less feminine in look. We’ll introduce some new scents that are more of a guy scent. Some that are unscented and a sandalwood scent. I love the colorful labels we have; they catch the eye. We will soften our labels with a different font and change the logo. It’s an evolving thing. What’s ongoing for us is getting our products in more stores, going to fairs, farmers markets and shows. We will expand into more shops.

— Reporter: 541-633-2117, sroig@bendbulletin.com