Tuscany’s famed Borgo Santo Pietro resort launches a luxury skincare line

A visit to Borgo Santo Pietro, the storied five-star resort nestled some 60 miles south of Florence, is an idyllic immersion into the Tuscan version of la dolce vita. The uber-luxe, 20-room estate — which regularly tops world’s-best lists — dazzles on every front. Artfully designed around an exquisite 13th-century villa, the sprawling, 270-acre grounds encompass 13 acres of impeccably manicured gardens, rolling vineyards and sheep-strewn riverside pastures. Its myriad charms include a Michelin-starred restaurant and an organic farm complete with an artisan-cheesemaking dairy. The property melds nature and luxury arguably better than any other hotel in Europe, if not the world.

So it’s no surprise that Jeanette Thottrup — who discovered the then-derelict ruin with her husband, Claus, in 2001 and spent seven years painstakingly transforming it — has made the resort home to Seed to Skin, her new luxury skincare line.

The brand’s defining ethos, which Thottrup calls “Green Molecular Science,” is rooted in the idea that cell repair and regeneration is only achieved by permeating the skin’s every layer. Thus, Seed to Skin extracts plants’ most potent natural ingredients and utilizes an advanced molecular delivery system to fully penetrate and rejuvenate the skin.

The launch marks the culmination of a journey that Thottrup, a former fashion designer, first embarked upon nearly two decades ago, following a struggle with infertility that led her to explore natural therapies. After two years of detoxing, overhauling her diet and acupuncture, she gave birth to a healthy son, Vincent, in 2006. Inspired to continue her research, she studied at Neal’s Yard Remedies — “the first and best in natural skincare back in the 1980s,” she says — and eventually decided to start her own line, fueled by the power of nature.

“The more I healed, the more I wanted to know how natural medicine worked,” she tells Alexa. “What I learned became the cornerstone of the Borgo Santo Pietro lifestyle concept — clean living presented in a fun and interesting way.”

Partnering with a team of experts, Thottrup built a state-of-the-art lab onsite and spent five years developing Seed to Skin before its debut last year. Many of the ingredients (like rosehip, calendula, sheep’s milk and raw honey) come from the resort’s organic farm, and all products are handmade at the lab.

Fittingly, Borgo Santo Pietro has embraced holistic healing for nine centuries: It formerly served as a health sanctuary for medieval pilgrims, where villagers grew wild herbs to make remedies for those in need of recovery before they were allowed to enter the neighboring Abbey of San Galgano, the first Gothic church built in Tuscany.

These days, guests lucky enough to score a coveted reservation (the resort reopens for the 2020 season in April) can arrange flowers with the in-house florist, make homemade ravioli with maestra Mamma Olga at the Borgo Cooking School or luxuriate in a holistic spa treatment. Finish the day gazing out over the countryside, glass of Barolo in hand, from the terrace of Meo Modo, Borgo’s enchanting Michelin-starred restaurant, or Trattoria Sull’Albero, its cozy all-day eatery, ingeniously constructed around the trunk of a 300-year-old oak tree.

“We want to offer a retreat where guests can trust in the quality of what we do — they can talk to the farmers, engage with our chefs and watch our skincare being made through the lab’s big glass window,” Thottrup says. “It’s a place where ‘Let us take care of you’ means exactly that — where you can learn, take part if you like and really recharge your batteries.”

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