Furtuna Skin, Sourced From a Private Farm in Sicily, Is Growing

Furtuna Skin, the buzzy Italian skin-care brand, has seen 10 percent growth month-over-month this year amid the pandemic, shared founders Agatha Relota Luczo and Kim Walls.

“We’re able to say every week, ‘Every month we did better than the prior month,’” said Walls, chief executive officer.

It’s been “meaningful growth,” she continued. “The responses that we get are insane. It’s nothing I’ve ever seen. The responses that we get are mind-blowingly positive across the board, from consumers, from industry veterans, from retailers, from people who want to work with the brand, consultants. This feels like the ride of a lifetime.”

The women attribute the success to the products themselves. Launched in 2019, at the center of Furtuna Skin’s offering is its “cuore” collection, the Italian word for heart: a trio of goods composed of a combo face and eye serum, a micellar essence and a bi-phase moisturizing oil.

“It’s essentially a minimalist approach to comprehensive skin care,” said Walls. “It’s a system that gives immediate visible results with long-term benefits, and fundamentally, it treats all the core needs of skin.”

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Every item is sourced from Luczo’s Sicilian farm outside the town of Corleone in Italy, at a 700-acre private estate she shares with husband Steve Luczo.

“We went on a mission about 12, 13 years ago to find this land his grandmother grew up on,” Luczo said of the property. “When he was a little boy, he made a promise to his grandmother that he was going to find this land, and so, we went on a mission, and we did find it.”

It was a half-acre large and included the original ruins of the house. The two restored the space and bought its surroundings.

“It hadn’t been cultivated in 400 years,” continued Luczo.

A look at the Sicilian estate where Furtuna Skin is sourced, located outside the town of Corleone in Italy. Courtesy

A friend of theirs who runs the farm, a botanist with a double Ph.D., discovered an olive tree on the estate that was going extinct, Luczo went on. Subsequently, the couple planted 14,000 trees and began cultivating olive oil.

“We built an olive oil mill, 17,000 square feet, so as soon as the olives are picked, they’re brought down to the mill, pressed and bottled,” said Luczo.

They also discovered 80 medicinal plants and herbs on the estate, and after meeting with Walls — a wellness entrepreneur and the previous global general manager at Lime Crime — Furtuna Skin was born.

“Agatha’s farm, it provides so much for us that nobody else has,” said Walls. “There’s a lot of sameness on the market, and we have ingredients that have never been seen before, that have thousands [of years of history].”

Furtuna Skin cofounder and chief creative officer Agatha Relota Luczo on the farm. Courtesy

Using wild botanicals — which are full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants — along with science and technology, the women have been working to extract and utilize the organic, wild-foraged ingredients for their maximum potency. To do so, they practice the Soundbath method, a technique that applies sound and temperature to preserve the effectiveness of ingredients. Aiming to be clean, there are no additives, and items are cruelty-free and hypoallergenic.

“Eighty percent of the farm is a bioreserve, and everything on the land is fed with spring water,” said Luczo.

While it launched direct-to-consumer at furtunaskin.com, the brand recently entered other retailers. Furtuna Skin is now available at Goop, Bluemercury and Neiman Marcus. Along with the “cuore” set, priced at $398 (or $225 for its travel size) but also sold separately, the brand provides a $185 replenishing balm. (The women also created Bambini Furtuna, a children’s wellness brand.)

“We’re taking a global approach and focusing on retailers that are very good storytellers,” shared Walls of strategy.

Furtuna Skin is a team of 11 employees, working remotely during the pandemic. It’s nothing new for the group. They’ve been remote, “nimble, agile and flexible” since the inception of the company, which put the brand in an advantageous position while adapting to COVID-19, said Walls.

Kim Walls, the brand’s cofounder and chief executive officer. Courtesy

Looking ahead, the immediate focus will continue to be on skin care, she said. The next release is a $285 eye cream, due to be released in March.

“We have a very robust product pipeline that goes out for years and endless ideas for new products,” Walls shared of future plans.

“Consumers want the best and highest ingredients brought to the market,” added Luczo. “We’ll be addressing everyone’s needs in skin care and all their concerns.”

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