Beauty & Balance

Meet the Skin-care Brand Sourced From a 700-Acre, Private Sicilian Farm

A new Italian skin-care brand is proving that organic is potent — and chic.
Furtuna Skin is a Sicilian beauty brand founded by model Agatha Relota Luczo and industry veteran Kim Walls, formerly Lime Crime's global general manager. The brand, which has been in the works for about four years, is clean and sustainable. Its ingredients are sourced from a private, certified-organic, 700-acre estate that boasts more than 12,000 olive trees, 500 unique plants and 50 medicinal wild herbs.
On Nov. 13, Furtuna Skin launches with a dual-use product: the Porte Per La Vitalità Face and Eye Serum, $185, available on the brand's web site. The serum, whose name means "gateway to vitality," is formulated with Anchusa azurea, a medicinal flower that has not previously been used in skin care.
"It’s a vitamin bath for your skin," Luczo told WWD of the debut product. "The reason I wanted to launch with the face and eye serum first is because it showcases what Furtuna Skin is about. All the ingredients are showcased in this product and all of our innovative processes. It’s great for anyone’s skin type — oily, sensitive, dry skin."
Anchusa azurea contains vitamins B, C and E, as well as phenols, flavonoids and fatty acids that have anti-inflammatory powers. All of Furtuna's ingredients are wild-foraged and extracted using the Soundbath Method, which was first used in the pharmaceutical industry. Using sound and temperature, the Soundbath Method preserves the potency of the ingredients, allowing for Furtuna's serum to be 92.3 percent organic.
"The ingredients on this farm make things possible that haven’t been possible before," said Walls. "This is the next generation of clean beauty."
The Porte Per La Vitalità Face and Eye Serum is clinically tested and safe for use around the eyes. It is hypoallergenic and effective in preventing free radical damage.
In addition to the company’s web site the product will be sold at facialist Shani Darden's studio in Beverly Hills. Furtuna will roll out new products beginning next year, including men's grooming products and baby care.
"We recognize how much newness we’re bringing to market with all of our processes and ingredient stories," said Walls. "It’s important to us that people understand the brand and the transformation that we are working to create in people’s lives. It makes sense to launch with one product that has all the different benefits and features. It’s a product everybody can use."
Furtuna's serum incorporates a preservation system that replicates that which occurs naturally in plants.
"We look to the farm, not to the labs," said Luczo. "These wild plant communities, they have to do the same thing that products on the shelves have to do: they have to protect themselves from the environment or from getting fungus."
The products are made in small batches, which, said Walls, is a further benefit to the customer.
"Every single batch is tested for all the things we test for, which is a lot," she said. "The plants that come off the farm are immediately processed and stored in all the right ways and built into skin-care products, so those small batches result in significant benefits for the people who are using them. We’re not worried about these products from a scalability perspective."
"Consumers are so knowledgeable today, they know so much about ingredients and what they want on their skin," said Luczo. "People are realizing how important our skin is and what we put on our skin is equally as important as what we eat."
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