Filed Under: Skin

Olives to Olive Oil to Skincare: Our Process

Have you ever picked up a skincare product and wondered, “how did they make this?” Whether it’s your favorite kombucha drink or your most trustworthy cleanser, it’s important to understand what goes into producing your products. But ingredient labels are often lacking when it comes to divulging these details – and sometimes, that’s on purpose. 

Here at Furtuna Skin, we believe you have a right to know how your products are made. That’s why, as a company, we promise full transparency. From our farming methods to our Italian heritage, we want you to be in the know about how Furtuna Skin uses nature to give you glowing skin. And that starts with understanding our ingredients. 

Our skincare line is rooted in the power of olives. Filled with rich nutrients like oleic acid and squalene, olives and their oil are top ingredients in natural skincare. Designed to lock in moisture, olive oil is great for all skin types, including dry and oily skin. But not all olive oils are the same. 

How Is Olive Oil Made?

Surprise! The quality of olive oil depends on the quality of how the oil was made. Depending on the intended use of the oil, manufacturers will process olives differently to meet specific product goals. 

When talking only about olive oil for your skin, processing makes a big difference in the quality of the final product. Here at Furtuna Skin, we’re dedicated to creating the best olive oil skincare products, so from harvesting to handling, we’ve designed our process to make the most out of our olives. 

What Does Furtuna Skin’s Olive Oil to Skincare Process Look Like?

When it comes to turning powerful plants into skincare ingredients, every step of the process matters. From how you grow the fruits to how you harvest and process them, there is no room for error when turning olives into olive oil. Even small differences in processing can impact the final product, so it’s important to be mindful during each step. 

At Furtuna Skin, we dedicate an immense level of precision and care to each step, starting with how we grow our organic olives. 

Growth and Cultivation

Inspired by Mother Nature, we look to the land — not the lab — when it comes to our skincare. Rather than build our products off of chemicals and false promises, we rely on nature to nurture our skin. But skincare is still a science, so we bring in the best botanists to help us make the most of what nature has to offer. 

The Furtuna Skin Farm is home to 865 acres of nutrient-rich land and over 12,000 individual olive trees. Ranging in age from 600 to 1,500 years, our 12 different species of olive trees offer much biodiversity – and nutrient diversity. 

To achieve the best blend of nutrients for your skin each year, we monitor our olive trees throughout as they grow, testing for levels of polyphenols, fatty acids, and other important dermatologist-recommended nutrients that can support your skin barrier. At the end of the growing season, we select the six species with the best nutrient profile to harvest for our olive oil. 

Harvesting

From mid-September to the end of October, when the Mediterranean fruits are at their highest sterol levels, Furtuna Skin takes to the fields to handpick its olives. In just 45 days, our team of 25 local farmers harvest over 8,500 kilograms of olives to be made into olive oil. As each olive is picked, biological experts inspect the crop, ensuring they are accurately ripened and free from any imperfections. 

Processing

When it comes to processing olives, timing is everything. Move too quickly, and you risk bruising the olives during transit. But move too slow, and you lose precious nutrients from the olives. Like most things in nature, making olive oil is a balancing act. 

To ensure optimal nutrition from the fruits, olive must be cold pressed into olive oil within 24 hours of being harvested to be considered extra virgin olive oil. While other skincare companies might be satisfied with the minimum standard, that’s not enough for Furtuna Skin. To achieve the highest fatty acid levels and produce the most potent olive oil possible, we cut the standard in half, pressing our olives within 12 hours of harvesting. 

Usage

Thanks to our superior growth, harvesting, and processing methods, Furtuna Skin boasts the best organic extra virgin olive oil. With a fatty acid level of 98% and free acid level below 0.5%, our extra virgin olive oil is cold-pressed to deliver the best antioxidant – and anti-aging – properties. 

How Do You Know You Have Good Ingestible Olive Oil?

The benefits of olive oil are far and wide, from hydration support for dry skin to skin barrier protection. Olive oil even possesses antioxidant properties to help counteract the free radicals responsible for dark spots and fine lines — there is much to love about olive oil’s ability to support a healthy complexion. 

The best part is that olive oil can rejuvenate and support your skin from the inside out. Many people, including our very own founder, take a few spoonfuls of olive oil a day as a supplement. In fact, combining topical olive oil with ingested olive oil may help compound this ingredient’s effects on your skin.

But not all olive oils promise great benefits for your skin. You can’t just pick up a bottom-shelf olive oil from the baking aisle at your local grocery store. To ensure you’re ingesting the best olive oil to experience skin benefits, check your olive oil for these three key factors. 

1. Fruitiness

The first key factor of any good olive is an abundance of fruitiness. Because of high-quality phenols, low acidity, and low defect levels, fruity olives are fragrant and can benefit your skin when ingested. With many antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties, your olive oil’s fruitiness is essential for soothing sensitive skin from within. 

2. Pungency

The next key factor is pungency, which represents the sharpness in the smell of olive oil. Highly pungent olives often contain high levels of oleocanthal, another powerful anti-inflammatory agent. 

3. Bitterness

The last key factor of olive oil is its bitterness. The taste of olive oil says a lot about its skincare success – luckily, this is probably the most noticeable quality of good olive oil. Derived from the amount of oleuropein in an olive, particularly bitter-tasting olive oil will contain antioxidant and antibacterial activity. 

What Characteristics Should Topical Olive Oil Have?

When it comes to olive oil that you apply to your skin to experience benefits, there are a few key factors that set the best apart from the rest. 

At Furtuna, the olive oil that goes into our luxurious skincare products is rich in key fatty acids, oleic acid, and crucial nutrients that work hard to support your skin. Our organic extra virgin olive oil is single origin and packed with phenols, vitamins like vitamin E, and squalane — the perfect constituents to help rejuvenate your skin, moisturize without causing congestion, and protect against damaging free radicals.

How Can You Incorporate Olive Oil Skincare Products Into Your Routine?

Ready to add topical olive oil to your skincare routine? 

Thanks to the perfect blend of hydrating olive leaf water and protective olive oil, olive oil skincare products are great for all skin types and skin conditions. Whether you’re dealing with eczema, T-zone clogging, or just dry skin, transform your skincare routine with our Transformation Set. Complete with an Micellar Cleansing Essence and our best-selling Biphase Moisturizing Oil, this set is the perfect starter kit for your at-home spa days. 

But skincare should be for more than just your face. To give your body the same luxury treatment as your face, give our Artisanal Italian Bar Soap a try! Made with the same organic olive oil as our other products, this bar soap hydrates skin as it cleans, leaving your body fresh and free of breakouts. 

The Bottom Line

Furtuna Skin believes in the power of olives, not the power of secrets. We grow, harvest, process, and use our plants with sustainability in mind, making our skincare products great for the environment and your skin. Fueled by only the best olive oil for your skin, our natural skincare products put the “oh!” in olives. 

Sources:

Anti-Inflammatory and Skin Barrier Repair Effects of Topical Application of Some Plant Oils | PMC 

Free Radicals and Extrinsic Skin Aging | PMC 

Oleocanthal, a Phenolic Derived from Virgin Olive Oil: A Review of the Beneficial Effects on Inflammatory Disease | PMC

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