The magic of extra virgin olive oil for skincare with Furtuna Skin founder Agatha Relota Luczo - podcast episode cover

The magic of extra virgin olive oil for skincare with Furtuna Skin founder Agatha Relota Luczo

Oct 09, 202437 minSeason 2Ep. 18
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Episode description

Thousands of years ago, Cleopatra used olive oil to keep her skin beautiful. Today, Agatha Relota Luczo has created a “clean” beauty business based on this common kitchen ingredient. The model and entrepreneur uses fruit from the ancient olive trees on her Sicilian farm (the oldest is more than 1,000 years old!) to make Furtuna Skin's organic skincare products. From her daily shot of extra virgin olive oil to her olive oil-based cleansers and moisturizers, Agatha is an evangelist for the beauty benefits it provides “from inside out.” She talks to Martha today about the transformative effects of this ancient ingredient and the business she has built around it.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

I think it always goes back to the personal touch that we put into everything we do, and the farm really sets up our standards for quality.

Speaker 2

Agatha rilottel Lusco grew up in New Jersey, but these days she spends her time between Paris, where she is raising four beautiful children, and a farm in Sicily that is the foundation of her organic skincare line for Tuna's Skin. I met Agatha recently in Paris and had the opportunity to try her products. She's here today to talk about her commitment to clean beauty and the transformative attributes of olive oil. Welcome to my podcast, Agatha.

Speaker 1

Thank you so much for having me. It's a thrill to be here and to be talking to you and your audience today.

Speaker 2

It's very nice to see you here in New York. The Olympics were quite fun. We were saying at the same hotel at the George sank I was there the first week of the Olympics, and did you say much longer?

Speaker 1

No, I only say the first week and then we went off to Croatia after that.

Speaker 2

Oh lucky.

Speaker 1

Yeah, But the Olympics were amazing.

Speaker 2

They were I just told Agatha that I thought Paris did France proud and the world proud by hosting such an amazing, amazing series of sports events that event in a most beautiful country. It was great. Well, we want to talk about your skincare line. Agatha is a young mother of four, as I mentioned, but she was a former model. She is now the face of her brand and her skin speaks for the brand itself. Thank you so much, you're so gorgeous. Thank you. What inspired you just start a skincare line?

Speaker 1

So it all started back when my husband was ten years old and he made a promise to his grandmother that he's going to buy this land back and bring it back into the family because she always spoke about how amazing it was. Her stepfather sold it. He wasn't such a kind guy. It was a Cinderella and reverse story where in sicily.

Speaker 2

Right, oh my gosh, the land of the Godfather exactly.

Speaker 1

And so fifteen years ago we went on this journey to find this land and we did. We found it. It was a half acre large, and then we ended up buying eight hundred acres all around her property where she was born on and all eight hundred acres is certified organic. Eighty percent is part of a biopreserve, one of the most important biopreserves of the European community, which means what which means we practice regenerative farming and agriculture.

You have different species of birds. You're committed to being part of this community of you know, preserving plants and biodiversity of Sicily. We have natural.

Speaker 2

Spring group there on Sicily. Because that's kind of surprising, just because it's so insular. I visited Sicily quite a few times. I love that island, but I would beautiful. I didn't know it was so progressive.

Speaker 1

Yes, we're an hour and a half outside of Carlione and there's nothing around our land. It's a truly a working farm and we have so much different elevation on the farm. It's incredible. You have Mount Castro on one side and then Mount Peru on the other end. Beru and Arabic means to the sea, so if you climb up to the top of this mountain you could see all the way to the Mediterranean seats. Phenomenal. Yeah, and we've planted over twelve thousand olive trees on the farm.

Speaker 2

We have some very ancient olive trees too.

Speaker 1

We have Yes, we have some ancient olive trees, some that are thousands of years old. And then we have a cultiv called Biankalila Centinada that was on the brink of being extinct and we brought it back from being extinct. So they are four thousand of that variety over farm Beyonce.

Speaker 2

Is it a weight olive, yes, light colored all of it. Yes. Oh yeah, so I'd love to see that sometime. When do you harvest? You must be getting ready. We're getting ready to harvest, yes, And how do you pick in a few weeks? How do you pick the olives off an olive tree? It's always been a mystery to me. I've never seen an olive harvest. I've seen a great harvest, but I haven't seen an olive harvest.

Speaker 1

You shake the trees, yeah, so it's either picked by hand, and then we've just started incorporating the shaking. Because the ground in Sicily are on the farm, it's not very even so to have the farmers climb up on ladders is not always the safest.

Speaker 2

So but can you drive it? Can you drive a small vehicle to shake the tree?

Speaker 1

Yeah? We have tractors.

Speaker 2

Oh you do? Okay?

Speaker 1

Actually, the funny story is one day, not a few years back, when we were on the farm, my husband goes, oh, I have a surprise for you. I bought you a Lamborghini. And I was like really. I was like, that's that's that's a little uh yeah, yeah, a little extravagant. He goes check it out and it was a Lamborghini tractor.

Speaker 2

Oh, how great.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's all great.

Speaker 2

Probably make more money selling like Lamborghini tractors.

Speaker 1

They do. They're phenomenal, they're tractors.

Speaker 2

Oh how great. Yeah, I'll have to look into that. I have I have drawn deers and cabodos, so now maybe I can look into a Lamborghini. Kind of sexy, that would be fun. So so olive oil, now you started. Did you know you were going to start a skin caroline before you planted the olive track.

Speaker 1

So we started actually a food line first called Bonafertuna, which I brought you some of the goodies from Fortuna. We make extroverts and olive oil, few different cultivars of them and blends pasta ancient green pastas. We have tomato sauce from the colors tomatoes and also some herbs and for cooking this is the olive oil from Fortuna skin. So this is the six we picked. There's twelve different varieties on the farm, and we picked six varieties for

for tuna's skin. And if we looked at doctor Pasquale, who's our chief scientific officer, he's on the farm every day. He has a double PhD In botany biology and he's an agronomist. And you looked at the six different cultivars that would be the best for drinking extra virgin olive oil. Because that's how I start my day every single morning, is a shot of olive oil and with a squeeze of lemon on it. Sometimes it's amazing for your microbiome.

Digestion helps regulate blood sugar. It's a beautiful way to start the day. Anti inflammatory of olive oil tablespoon. Oh yeah, so just fill it up a spoon.

Speaker 2

I could do that.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it is amazing for your health. The benefits of extra virgin olive oil is just off the roofs. I'm obsessed with extra virgin olive oil. I'm an olive oil samelier as well.

Speaker 2

So how do you get to be an olive oil.

Speaker 1

Some courses a school out of Spain, and then one in London as well, and then I'm actually working on another one out of Italy as well. But it's great being an olive oil sam alier, being able to taste the olives, be able to tell the different origins where they come from.

Speaker 2

Well, if you're going to put olive oil on your face, we'll put the best olive oil on your face. Right, that's your theory. How do you actually distill or make the olive oil not too oily for your skin?

Speaker 1

So we actually use a process called sound bath extraction. On the farm. We have over eight hundred different floras and herbs and eighty different medicinal plants on the farm. So we also use our plants and our ingredients are wildly put in plants I call them for in our products. We use a sound bath extraction method to extract the nutrients from the plants.

Speaker 2

How does that work?

Speaker 1

So we looked to the science, We looked to the sign community of how they extract the nutrients from the plants, and we look to the pharmaceutical industry.

Speaker 2

Yeah, pharmaceuticals toeah that don't they Yeah?

Speaker 1

And they incorporated it in about twenty twelve because they need precision for all of their products that they make.

Speaker 2

Do perfumers also use that I think they do. Perhaps they do get to extract the particular sense from different flowers. Yeah, I think they probably use that same sea.

Speaker 1

And it's a great way to extract the nutrients. Because that Fortuna skin were all about how do we preserve that potency of the plants, because the potency of the plants is what drives the transformational results on the skin, and so we do that every step of the way, from having our plants being fed with the natural spring water that comes down the mountain from Mount Peru to practicing regenerative agriculture and farming and Marthino this best from

everyone how important soil is for feeding the plants and promoting that potency. So we try to figure out how do we preserve that potency, and we found the sound bath extraction method, which is basically ultrasound. So instead of using harsh chemicals to extract the nutrients from the plants, we can use our own base of either extra virgin olive oil or olive fleaf water, which tested three times more potent than any olive flea water on the market.

Speaker 2

What is that it's basically.

Speaker 1

The distilled olive leaves with using ours ours a spring water from our farm, and it is really high in anti accidants. I love drinking also making my own olive tea or in the summertime and olive iced tea, all of leaf iced tya.

Speaker 2

Now are you packaging the leaves for us that we can do that.

Speaker 1

Too, it's coming.

Speaker 2

That would be good. Yeah, it would be next thing. I would love to buy a big tin of olive leaves and make sure. I like tea. I like all different kinds of teese. I like herbal teas, peppermint, mint, spearmint, so I would love leaf.

Speaker 1

Olive tea has three times antioxidants of green tea. Really that is so great health. So I love using the whole olive tree. So even in our exfoliator we ground up the olive pits as the exfoliation.

Speaker 2

I have been using your exfoliation. I love that. Thank you. Yeah, that's really really great, Yeah, really great. Yea.

Speaker 1

And the way we also formulate is about protecting the skin barrier of the skin.

Speaker 2

What is it an olive oil that is so good for your skin? What is it exactly? Is it a what kind of compound.

Speaker 1

So what's amazing about extra virgin olive oil is that it's one of the only oils on the market that you could just actually take the fruit and squeeze it and you get the juice from the olive. It is full of anti accidents and polyphenols. It has an antioxidant in it called oliocanthal that mimics mutrin in nature. Oh really, yes, So it's super anti inflammatory and helps reduce the inflammation

in the body. There's so many amazing studies done by Harvard and Oxford University a Yelle showing how it helps reduce dementia and any anti inflammatory diseases.

Speaker 2

So we should be eating a lot of olives.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and cooking with it. Cooking with it is amazing because there's like a nutrient exchange with the vegetables that actually enhances the vitamins and food.

Speaker 2

One olive tree. You might know this because I think about this all the time. I think about scarcity, and I think about productivity, and I think about where is all the coffee coming from that is being drunk all over the world, Where is all where are all the peppercorns that are being ground every single day for seasoning our food, And I think about olives too all the time. Where are all these olives that produce enough oil for the entire world to be cooking with or seasoning with?

Where are they When we open up a bottle of olive oil and it says virgin olive oil on it, is it really virgin olive oil?

Speaker 1

It's hard to say.

Speaker 2

It is hard to say. It's hard to say if it's extra virgin. So I sometimes think the pepper corns when you open a little paper packet of pepper, you know, in a deli or someplace, and I think, God, this looks like sawdust.

Speaker 1

Yeah, So it's important on the packaging of the bottle to find a single estate grown olive because then you know those olives are coming all from that one estate.

Speaker 2

One tree gives how many gallons of olive oil a year? That's a good question that depends on the should know these kinds of things?

Speaker 1

Just yea. It depends on the tree and the age of the tree. Because what's great about olive trees is that they keep giving more and more every single year. So the older the tree, the more and more olives it produces. And olive trees are great because they don't need that much attention and care.

Speaker 2

They're there in that rocky soil on a hillside somewhere in Sicily, producing beautiful fruit exactly.

Speaker 1

I mean, this farm is truly magical. When you're on this farm, you can feel it has a heartbeat.

Speaker 2

And it looks like it. I guess I shared some photographs of this amazing, amazing piece of property. And how often do you go there?

Speaker 1

We try to go as often as possible, depending on the kid's schedule, so at least five times a year, if not more.

Speaker 2

Oh, it's just the most magnificent place. I still don't know exactly what's in those al is that makes our insides so healthy and our skins so beautiful.

Speaker 1

All those amazing antioxidants in the polyphenos.

Speaker 2

Now, where are the best olives in the world grown on Sicily?

Speaker 1

I would say at our farm. I mean, the attention of the detail that we put on everything we do is just incredible, and from the start to the finish. So we have our own olive mill on the farm. It's a seventeen thousand square foot olive mill that we everything is, you know, starting from the water which is natural spring water, till the end product it's bottled right there on the farm, so we're in control over the whole entire process.

Speaker 2

So how do how do you grind your olives for oil?

Speaker 1

We use a milling process, so doctor Pasquale is there and just running.

Speaker 2

Stone on stone or what do you use to actually grind the olives is like a centrifuge.

Speaker 1

Centrifuge exactly, refuge.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I bought a centrifuge for myself just to see because Nathan marveled. Have you have you had Nathan at your farm?

Speaker 1

Yeah? Not at our Yes, I think he did come and visit our farm. And he's a good friend as well.

Speaker 2

Oh he's fantastic. I'm just going he's sattle to visit with him.

Speaker 1

Nathan and Rosemary good friends.

Speaker 2

Oh yes, Well, Nathan taught me about centrifuge's and how you can extract oil from carrots. Yeah, and they almost all vegetables have some sort of natural oil in them, so I assume that olives of course have one of the highest concentrates of oil in them. Yeah, since that's what they're used.

Speaker 1

But from all the oils on the market, it's the only one that you can just take the fruit and you're not using any chemical process and so like a seed oil to make the oil.

Speaker 2

So when you when you squeeze the when you squeeze that olive or centrifugeon, that's that's pure olive oil.

Speaker 1

Pure olive oil, pure olive juice.

Speaker 2

I have to come juice to see you.

Speaker 1

You need to come. It's amazing. I mean I do everything with extraversion olive oil. I bake with it. I make an amazing olive oil cake.

Speaker 2

Oh I bet.

Speaker 1

And I actually fry with it and do everything with extra virgin no butter. Sometimes France has amazing butter they do.

Speaker 2

Oh and Agatha lives in Paris with her family during this during the school year.

Speaker 1

Yes, and we get spoiled with amazing produce in France as well.

Speaker 2

Oh, yes, so beautiful. The food was so good during the Olympics. So the Sicilian terrain is perfect for what you're doing.

Speaker 1

Oh, this soil is so full of minerals in volcanic ash, so it really adds to all the nutrients to the plants in.

Speaker 2

Addition to what's there naturally. Do you have to feed these trees? Do you do you use any other kinds of supplements for the trees?

Speaker 1

Just all organic supplements if needed. But we really practice the regenerative farming, which is hard. It's hard on farmers as you know, to be able to you never know what weather conditions are going to to come.

Speaker 2

Have you had a drought there, for there is a drought.

Speaker 1

Right now, but this land is it hasn't hasn't rained, and I feel like in a few years in so and this rain, we're actually bringing buckets of water to our neighbors to help them out because we have all the natural springs and we have so much you know, natural spring water on the farm.

Speaker 2

Do you have to irrigate the orchards, the all of orchards, yes, yeah.

Speaker 1

And then we also wild forage plants on our farm. So doctor Pasquale I call him the plant whisper because he can look at a plant and he can tell when it's at its full potency. We were just sighted recently in the journal called Anti Accident for our plant called Nagella demicina that's found on our farm. It's grown in the wild.

Speaker 2

Nigela. I know Nigela, and it is a beautiful flower.

Speaker 1

Yes, there's there's a Nagella sativa and Nagella demicina. And what they did was they showed that our Nagella demicina on the farm, grown in the wild is more potent than being cultivated.

Speaker 2

And he uses those little black seeds from the flower, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1

And we also use petals and different We use different parts of the plants at different times of the years. So mimoonos want to exactly pick what.

Speaker 2

Part of that's going also into your skincare line? Yes, okay, how many people are working on the farm. What's the staff?

Speaker 1

So we employ about at different times of the years, depending on when we're foraging or harvesting, up to forty people. We're the largest employeer in our area. We give back to the community. My husband and I we always say, if we're going to be doing anything, how are we going to leave this world a better place than we found it? And for us, it's important to give back to the community. So we've built a house for people

of need. We give to the schools, donate computer and technology and give back to the community and provide jobs.

Speaker 2

And what kind of maintenance do all of oil trees need? Do they get pruned or do they just get left?

Speaker 1

They get left every few years. They need to be brewn back They're amazing because there they're a symbol of strength and heritage and longevity exactly. And we know that dating back to the time of Cleopatra used to use extra virgin olive oil for skincare.

Speaker 2

How do we know it is extra version between virgin olive oil extra virgin olive oil. What's the distinction?

Speaker 1

The distinction is how it's being pressed and taken care of, and then if there is any defects in the extra virgin olive oil. So as an olive oil solier, I'm gonna judge on some of the competitions. I will be one next week in Paris, Oh, Yes, with Pire Garnier actually,

and we can taste for defects. And sometimes these defects happened when the olives are being picked, or if they were frozen, they could The defects can also happen in transportations when olives are picked, sometimes they're transported to a different mill for a few hours and they could become fusty or musty, or even after during the bottling process, if they're not bottled properly or a bit of contamination, they can become a defect.

Speaker 2

Well, I'm anxious to see how you chaste all of oil. Somebody taught me how to taste it once, and I'm anxious to see if you do. It's the same way. So the harvest is coming. Do you go for the harvest? Every year?

Speaker 1

I try to go to the harvest.

Speaker 2

I would think that's an exciting time.

Speaker 1

It is so exciting to be at the farm for the harvest.

Speaker 2

And to see all those millions of olive us being harvested.

Speaker 1

Yeah. I think's one of the reasons we moved to Paris was once to internationalize our children a little bit and also to be closer to the farm. Our kids, I feel, speak a few languages. My family originated from Croatia, and so they speak a bit of Croatian, and they're fluent in French, They're learning Italian, and I just want them to be able to travel around the world, being able to communicate and connect with people lovely.

Speaker 2

It's so important, so important. What about span Spain because the Spanish.

Speaker 1

Yes, one son is learning Spanish.

Speaker 2

Oh, because you can easily now expand your business to Spain. Is the olive oil good enough?

Speaker 1

Yeah? The olaves are great in Spain.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And Croatia has some of the best olive oil, olives and olive oil as well.

Speaker 2

We're in a little box here. See how many people to I know? This is great.

Speaker 1

I love the studio.

Speaker 2

It's so great. How did you particularly develop your formulations? Did you work with cosmeticians or with scientists?

Speaker 1

And my co founder, she's a master formulist and also very passionate about plants and formulation, and she was working in the clean beauty sphere.

Speaker 2

Oh she was, Oh yeah, and so what are your particular rituals for looking so beautiful?

Speaker 1

Oh? Thank you?

Speaker 2

Besides drinking your tablespoon of olive oil every morning.

Speaker 1

Drinking extra virgin olive oil every morning, I only use fatuna skin on my skin because I do want people to see the transformative results of our products, and they do work and eating healthy, drinking lots of water, being dancing. I love to dance. One of my passions is ballroom and Latin dancing.

Speaker 2

Oh really? Oh oh great?

Speaker 1

Yeah great?

Speaker 2

And New Jersey. It's so unusual to talk to someone I grew up in New Jersey. I'm from Nutley, New Jersey, and my insul sphere has kept me within a two hundred mile radius. And here you are off in Sicily and Paris and so exciting.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it was exciting. I was born in New York City at Savanson's Hospital, which used to be down in the West Village. Now it's a condo building. And I grew up in Chatham, New Jersey, and then I started modeling when I was sixteen and graduated high school here the city at the Professional children and School.

Speaker 2

Oh, I see, but the Jersey is a great state. And so how did modeling influence you in terms of entrepreneurial behavior?

Speaker 1

You know, I mean we were both in the same industry and modeling traveling around the world.

Speaker 2

Doesn't it help you? Doesn't help you with like self confidence?

Speaker 1

Self confidence? Yes, meeting people. You're always on a photoshoot, meeting new people. And I worked with some of the best makeup artists in the world that inspired me for my rituals with makeup and skincare. But it was great working with Carlagerfeld and if Saint Laurent and and Terry Moglaire.

Speaker 2

Oh, I know, and where are they? Where is poor Carl Lagerfeld. Isn't it sad? Yeah? Yeah? I interviewed him in Paris for during one of his collections. It was so interesting to talk to him. He was very interesting and so talented, so talented. So you have big fans all over the place. Women's Where Daily Julianne Moore, the actress Courtney Kardashian is very much a fan of your skincare. So what appeals to them about your products? Do you think?

Speaker 1

I think it always goes back to the the personal touch that we put into everything we do at for Tuna Skin and the farm really sets up our standards for quality.

Speaker 2

Have you taken a tour people on a tour of your farm?

Speaker 1

You know, we've only started recently to that would be.

Speaker 2

Kind of a book for magazine editors, influencers whatever to go and see, uh see the operation because Sicily, first of all, is such a wonderful destination. And then to to see something uh so uh so devoted to purity as your as your wonderful farm, it's hard to call that.

Speaker 1

Ah. Yeah, I mean we're planning a press trip hopefully next May.

Speaker 2

That would be great.

Speaker 1

And yeah, I'd love to have you come. It'd be amazing to have you come and see the farm.

Speaker 2

I love Cecily, and I especially love the food. I don't know, I just love love the food.

Speaker 1

Isn't it, Because everything is about the quality and the simplicity of just the ingredient itself and the produce.

Speaker 2

So I don't know how large your business is, but what is your vision for the future of for tuna skin to.

Speaker 1

You know, we have a five year product pipeline. I have endless amount of ideas and I'm just excited about sharing this piece of magical this farm with the world and all these amazing ingredients. Being able to to give our customers these products is incredible. I'm a big believer

in transparency. So even if you look at the packaging, the bottles are clear, and the reason they're clear is because I want to be able to communicate that transparency and show the people how beautiful our products are.

Speaker 2

I want to do this test. I want to see what you brought here.

Speaker 1

Oh okay, let's do this test.

Speaker 2

Okay.

Speaker 1

I'd love for you to have you tried our olive oil.

Speaker 2

I have I have. I have an olive oil cabinet in my kitchen and I'm always looking for the best of the best. Just no, can I show you how I was taught how to do it? Oh? Yes, Oh it's so weird. No, I don't even use a glass.

Speaker 1

Oh you don't know.

Speaker 2

I was taught that what is this one? Oh? This is your extra special lx R. So I was taught to do this and then just oh, and to lick it from the hand. It's like a pure olive. It tastes like I just ate an olive, which is what you're looking for, right, Yes, Then after you do all the tasting, then this, I guess it was a soli of olive oil. Told me to just rub it in my hands and then put it all over my face. It was funny.

Speaker 1

In competitions, usually it's in a callboalt glass. Not to see the color of the extroverts and olive oil, so like that you're not influence by the color. And so you cover the top and you warm up the put your hand on the underneath to warm up the extraverts and olive oil to awake all the aromas. Okay, And then after you do this for a few seconds, doing.

Speaker 2

This in a small like it looks like a little brandy snifcher. But it's tiny, like a little shot glass. Yeah, but it's round, not sharp.

Speaker 1

So after we warm it up, we smell it to smell the aromas, and we should smell fresh cut grass, maybe some artichokes, tomatoes, and it usually smells green. And then when we go to taste it, we slurp it and then we do as it's called strapaggio to awaken.

Speaker 2

All the very smooth.

Speaker 1

This is very peppery.

Speaker 2

It tastes absolutely fresh.

Speaker 1

So the peppery taste in the back of the throat is the oleocantol. So the stronger the pepper flavor, the more oleo cantal there is in the extra virgin olive oil.

Speaker 2

And is that the Is that the antioxidants, that's the antiaxid. Yeah, and then you have the bona fortuna. This is the extra virgin olive oil can blend.

Speaker 1

And when you're tasting the olive oil, it should have harmony and balance, and you taste the bitterness on the tongue and the pungency in the back of the throat milder. It's milder. This because it's a blend. To have a few different trees.

Speaker 2

For tuna is milder olive oil.

Speaker 1

But we not all of them. We have a forte, we have the pure blend of Biancolia sentinada, and we have many different ones at bonafertuna. So one is better for stronger flavor, which is better for meat. And then the lighter one, this one I love using for cooking with fish or finishing it with fish.

Speaker 2

I like drizzling olive it. I just picked the most beautiful arugula for my garden yesterday and just the lightest olive oil, but fresh, fresh, fresh olive oil.

Speaker 1

So yeah, that is a bit milder, but you can still feel the peppery.

Speaker 2

Yeah, but it's also very tasty, very tasty. And you know because sometimes when you open an olive oil and you taste it like that, it will taste really acrid. I have my grandchildren are expert olive oil tasters. You should meat them sometimes. Oy. No, they love tasting things for perfection. And which one is this?

Speaker 1

This is just a generic one for market.

Speaker 2

Okay, this is one that you see in the supermarket. Almost every supermarket has this brand of olive oil. Let's see what that tastes like. It doesn't even taste like olives. After tasting yours, it does not. It can taste the it's vegetable oil, yeah it does. Wow.

Speaker 1

Yeah. So this on a competition, we'd say it has a defense.

Speaker 2

It does well, it's a major defect. It does not taste anything like the real thing. And it's still expensive. Yeah, all olive oil is expensive, and the more single estate olive oils are very expensive. Now A leader of the best olive oil in my in my local grocery store is something like sixty nine dollars. Yeah, that's a lot of money.

Speaker 1

Yeah, extords and olive oil is expensive, but there's so much attention that goes into making extra virginal olive oil.

Speaker 2

And back to the thing about where are all the olives coming from? Is there going to be a shortage of olive oil? Do you think has anybody worried about that? We don't see there being I worry I worry about. Isn't it any plant the rest of those acres? Yeah, Algatha has how many more acres to plant? You, oh, thousands of more acress. You have a lot of room in cil places, but that would be it would be.

Speaker 1

We just have our mill there built and we have this small little house that we found the the foundation of where my husband's grandmother was born in and we rebuilt that house as one bedroom. So it's great. When we go to the farm. The six of us stay in this one bedroom. All the kids are on the couch. It's like good glamping. There's no TV. The kids are running around, driving the tractors, hiking around and it's so wonderful place, maybe one with nature.

Speaker 2

So what are you give me these two recipes for our listeners that which uses your best olive oil? What's what's the one that you would that you would suggest, like right now if I wanted to go home with this bottle of extra virgin olive oil, the Bono Fortuna or where do you sell this in these in the States anywhere?

Speaker 1

Yes, so we're sold at Whole Foods and now we just got in yes, oh great, yes, just recently this year. And we're also at Erawan oh go, oh you are. And then the best is always to buy direct from Bonafertuna's website.

Speaker 2

Okay, we can go do DCC, DTC.

Speaker 1

And then for the Alexar, we are sold at for Tuna Skin's website.

Speaker 2

Oh okay, oh good.

Speaker 1

And what's great about the Alexor I forgot to mention is that after we pick it, it's pressed within six hours, oh six to eight hours after picking, okay, which is great. And then we also go through all of the olives, take out the bruised ones for this one, and we wait for twenty five minutes after the pressing to start bottling it.

Speaker 2

And then after bottling or not, does it have to be pasteurized or just put in the bottle.

Speaker 1

It's put into the sealed and sealed.

Speaker 2

So if you're if you're going home tonight, what would you make for your family with your olive oil?

Speaker 1

Something a beautiful fresh salad, drizzle of the extravergin olive oil, perhaps a nice little piece of soul fish and some veggies. Yeah, with drizzling it and then finishing it off with an amazing olive oil cake.

Speaker 2

How do you make that? Where's that recipe from?

Speaker 1

It's had been inspired from a few different restaurants around New York City.

Speaker 2

The best olive oil cake I ever had was at Valentino's house. He invited me for dinner one night to design your Valentino and his chef made the best olive oil cake. I tried and tried to get the recipe out of him, and even and no, I didn't get it out. And then now he did come out with a cookbook, a beautifully illustrated cookbook, and you know I forgot to. I have not yet looked to see if that olive oil cake is in there. I'm going to try. But if not, I would like you to share it.

Speaker 1

I will share it. I will share.

Speaker 2

I won't publish my recipe.

Speaker 1

You can publish it.

Speaker 2

Okay, I want you. I want to try it because I really love olive oil cake.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and it is so moist and delicious. And there's a restaurant here in the city called our TUSI. Oh, yes, they make a delix.

Speaker 2

They do. Oh that's good to astro.

Speaker 1

Version all of oil cake. And they're also sold on gold belly. So sometimes when we were living in California or it or went over because it's just a beautiful cake.

Speaker 2

Oh great. Tell us your line of products for the for the skincare.

Speaker 1

So we have a complete line of products. We have our cleansing oil Bomb. It's a beautiful ten percent of it has the olive fleaf water in it. It takes off all of the makeup and residue from your day. We have our Missler Water, which I call the Frenchwoman's secret. And what's so special about our Missler water is made with our olive leaf water and also an olive extract instead of a coconut extra. And then we have our

award winning hero product, the Biphase oil. It just made the list of wwd's one of the one hundred greatest skincare products ever made.

Speaker 2

How great?

Speaker 1

So exciting, and it really represents all of the olive tree because it has the olive oil in it, olive leaf water and sew of different botanicals from the farm and also stabilized vitamin C. And then we have our exfoliator. We have our Face and Eye Serum, which is a vitamin bath or a botox and a bottle. It's incredible for the face and the declote the before and afters

from the Face and Eye Serum is just incredible. And we're launching a new product this weekend, lip Bomb Olive butter lip bumb and exfoliator for the loves.

Speaker 2

How great. Yeah, Well, so everyone look on online at the for Tuna Skincare line for Tuna Skin dot com and you can order there. You can also find it of course. And are you and Sephora No, not yet. Brad Brundoff, Goodman, goop up the mercury. It's been so interesting to speak with you and thank you so much for having me on this original and very very interesting venture.

Speaker 1

Thank you so much. I just have to say, Martha, you're such an inspiration to me and everything that you have done. You're so kind and lovely and so warm.

Speaker 2

Thank you so much as much for meeting you, and I love you. I love talking to people who get it done, and you're getting it done in a very interesting way. Thank you, really and truly thank you. Eight

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