Agatha Relota Luczo and Kim Walls, cofounders of Furtuna Skin, Photo Credit: Courtesy of Furtuna ... [+] Skin

Furtuna Skin cofounders Agatha Relota Luczo and Kim Walls are poised to make their luxury boutique skincare line the new standard in the plant-based clean beauty space.

Between Luczo’s background as an international model and cofounder of the magical Bona Furtuna Olive Oil, and Walls’ pioneering work in clean beauty before ‘clean beauty’ was a recognized term, Furtuna Skin’s meteoric rise to superstar status was destined to happen.

The brand launched in November 2019 and began making industry waves within a year, garnering recognition in the way of awards, press and a wildly loyal celebrity following.

There’s a reason Furtuna Skin stands firmly by the tagline (which they’ve trademarked), “Wildly potent skincare.”

“Our mission is to leave the people and places we touch better off than when we found them,” Walls explains. “We advocate for the health of humans, animals and the earth through our business practices, products and passion. The extent to which we seek to leave things better than we found them translates into more common industry practices, like using glass bottles and organic farming methods — to the extraordinary — like participating in the creation of seed banks and reviving nearly extinct species of flora. We protect bird species and biodiversity by supporting land within a Biopreserve, and help provide financial stability and education to the Italian community where our ingredients are grown.”

This only scratches the surface of how Furtuna Skin is transforming land, the communities in that land, nature, skin, and essentially — people’s lives.

With the fusion of Luczo and Walls as cofounders — the blending of glamour and science — Furtuna Skin’s vision is crystal clear.

Biphase Moisturizing Oil, Photo Credit: Furtuna Skin

Known for a curated, well-edited product assortment (Furtuna Skin believes in the notion of a minimalist skincare routine, made possible by products that exceed the maximum level of results), its hero product is the Due Alberi Biphase Moisturizing Oil, which has been hailed as the holy grail of facial oils. Its two-part formula brings game-changing innovation to the category, making it both nourishing and moisturizing, while its “liquid gold” nature has earned it praise from every publication’s beauty editors, from Vogue and Goop to Harper’s Bazaar and WWD.

The Replenishing Balm and Face and Eye Serum are also hailed as top beauty products, and are associated with Furtuna Skincare’s coveted brand. More recent to the lineup: its Daily Renewal Cream (Perla Brillante) and Nightly Renewal Cream (Fior Di Luna), which both launched in April.

The beauty in Furtuna Skin is truly in the performance, which is the result of every element of the brand firing at all cylinders.

Its promise is based on being an Italian-born brand, combining old-world nature with modern science to drive unprecedented performance in clean beauty. This is achieved on the basis of these four pillars: one-of-a-kind source (wild-foraged and organic from its farm in Sicily), a pioneering processes (“ultrasound technology, which we’ve trademarked as our Soundbath™ Extraction Method, which uses no heat, rapidly extracts, prevents oxidation, and protects the potency of active ingredients from our exclusive, wild-foraged plants,” explains Walls), the exclusivity of rare and uncultivated ingredients, and transformative products (performance-driven by plant potency).

But the beauty of the brand is skin deep and can trace its origins to a poetic story: “There’s so much romance to the Furtuna background,” Luczo shares.

At the heart of the Furtuna Skin brand is the promise a young man — Steve Luczo, Agatha’s husband — made to his grandmother at age 10 about finding and reviving the land of her youth. Thirty-five years later, Agatha and Steve Luczo fully embodied this childhood dream to find Steve Luczo’s grandmother’s property. With the help of an acclaimed botanist, they retrieved the land and created the La Furtuna Estate, an organic farm that is the source of the wild-foraged organic ingredients of Furtuna Skin.

La Futurna Estate in Italy, Photo Credit: Andrea Caruso

In the unspoiled countryside of Sicily sits La Furtuna Estate, a lush, sustainable, biodiverse land that has grown to over 865 acres. The Estate now boasts over 12,000 olive trees and ancient trees that are 600 to 1,500 years old.

“When it comes to everything my husband and I do — between Furtuna Skin and Bona Furtuna Olive Oil — we always think about how the companies that we set out to build are going to help others and help a community. There has to be a bigger picture to it. We’ve even begun our first archaeological dig in the area, in partnership with the University of Palermo — we have these amazing scientists and archaeologists come to the farm. So all the work that's happening on the farm is exciting.”

Luczo and Walls wanted to solve the clean beauty industry's problem, which is that people are often skeptical of natural or clean beauty products’ actual performance. “The biggest hurdle there is extracting the highest level of nutrients so that the products outperform their synthetic counterparts,” Walls shares.

As CEO, Walls leads development from concept and formulation through brand-building and storytelling. She is always paving a new path, whether it’s being a trailblazer in the ‘90s nascent startup world or a skincare innovator venturing into new frontiers. Born into beauty, she brings a lifetime of knowledge and insights to Furtuna, gained as the daughter of Epicuren’s skincare founder, the general manager for Lime Crime Makeup, a master formulator, and an aesthetician working with dermatologists to understand client needs.

Luczo, who serves as Chief Creative Officer (and CCO of Bona Furtuna), oversees all creative aspects of Furtuna Skin and is involved in every aspect of the company, including the development of new products, inspired by her own skincare ritual. She is the ultimate brand gatekeeper, applying the same elevated standards to skincare that she upholds in the quality craftsmanship of Bona Furtuna Olive Oil (“There is no other olive oil like Furtuna’s,” Luczo shares: “It’s like a vitamin bath for your face!”)

Luczo is all about healthy, organic living, and it shows: she is an international model (has been modeling since age 16) who has graced the pages of Vogue, Marie Claire and W magazines for top couture fashion labels. While prepping for shoots, celebrity makeup artists and skin specialists introduced her to their holy grail products and trade secrets, making her a beauty expert extraordinaire and a go-to resource for product inspiration.

One key product that was inspired by her fashion world background: micellar water.

“A lot of my rituals originated from my modeling days. All the makeup artists used micellar water back in the day in Paris, and I fell in love with it. But we brought a new angle to micellar water and had a different reinvention to it. The typical micellar water is made with a coconut surfactant and ours is made with olive surfactant. It's also infused with our organic olive leaf water and our star ingredient, wild organic anchusa azurea.”

Everything that Furtuna Skin does is done with thought (from the wax seal on the packages made by artisanal workers, to the glass bottles made by Italian glass makers), care, intention, and transparency.

Replenishing Balm, Photo Credit: Courtesy of Furtuna Skin

The brand is not just walking the talk: Furtuna Skin cares deeply about transforming lives and lands by boosting the local Sicilian economy with job creation, contributing to life-changing opportunities for the Sicilian people. “Our passion for family, nature, science and socially responsible business has been injected into every aspect of Furtuna Skin, from sustainable farming to supply chain to product performance,” Luczo explains.

It’s a luxury skincare brand that goes beyond organic certifications, labels, or awards by adopting regenerative business practices — here are some of the sustainability highlights:

Creating rituals is also a key component to the brand, which is why its partnership with Higher Dose, who leans into rituals and bringing the wellness of nature, inside, was meaningful. And in a full circle moment, Furtuna Skin also launched a collaboration with designer Jeremy Scott: back in 1999, Jeremy Scott cast Luczo in his fifth-ever fashion show. The limited-edition Furtuna Skin x Jeremy Scott collab featured a flashy pink set with four products, and the kit’s packaging doubled as a purse or travel case for beauty products.

“A regenerative approach to life radiates through every aspect of our operation, from product development to partnership decisions,” Walls states. “Through Furtuna Skin, we have given ourselves, our team, and our customers a way to fully participate in restoring the injustices and hardship all around us. We seek to teach people that regenerative business practices have the potential to result in the absolute highest quality, highest performance, and most fulfilling life experiences, from the products we choose to use to the people with whom we spend our time. Regeneration is possible. And we're doing it."