Anyone who cooks knows (and loves) olive oil. To the Greek gods, olive oil was the life force that sustained everything and everyone. Today, we can only aspire to be immortal– but at least our skin can look it.
Famed, authentic olive oil brand Kosterina is beloved by chefs and now skincare mavens alike. Founder and CEO Katina Mountanos set out to recreate the quality of EVOO stateside, bringing the traditional harvesting techniques from her Southern Greek upbringing to the U.S.
Per an official press release, Kosterina Skincare comes to market to exemplify the studied and proven benefits of high quality olive oil (high in antioxidants that fight free radical damage, soothes, restores and helps regenerate cells, etc.) and encapsulates the wellness of the Mediterranean lifestyle. The brand launched in November 2021, with Extra Virgin Hydrating Face Oil and Extra Virgin Hydrating Oil Balm. Kosterina added clean beauty deodorant, Extra Virgin Deodorant, which launched in January 2022.
Below, Mountanos exclusively explained what led to the skincare company and how we can all get smooth, Greek god-level skin in the modern age. Hint: The answer is olive oil!
The Knockturnal: Kosterina has truly mastered the art of olive oil. What is your personal history with Greek-harvested olive oil?
Katina Mountanos: My personal history with extra virgin olive oil runs really deep. I’m of Greek heritage myself, and I founded Kosterina because I could never find here in the US the kind of liquid gold-quality olive oil I grew up enjoying with my family back in Southern Greece.
My family is from the fishing village of Koroni, which is where the Koroneki variety of the olive oil is grown – it’s the most popular variety grown throughout all of Greece. High quality olive oil is such an indelible part of the Mediterranean diet, and Greece is home to one of the five Blue Zones in the world, which are regions where residents live the longest. Olive oil is such a vital superfood that works from the inside and the outside. Research consistently shows the positive impact extra virgin olive oil has on our bodies, even adding years to our lives and improving brain function.
Yet, in the US, the olive oil industry is very poorly regulated, which leads to mislabeling, use of impure ingredients or even rancid oil on grocery shelves, which only unwittingly hurts the consumer. Even regulation around what constitutes “extra virgin,” which is the highest designation for olive oil, is sorely lacking. In Greece, it’s common for farming families to preserve the first batch of extra virgin olive oil pressed from the earliest harvest for their own families – it is considered to be liquid gold. It’s that early harvest extra virgin olive oil, bursting with beneficial polyphenols, that I wanted to bring to consumers here in the US through Kosterina.
The Knockturnal: As a Greek-American myself, the subtle flavors in different variations really accentuate meals. What led to the different flavors, and how does that translate for where olives are grown per each region?
Our extra virgin olive oil is very high in polyphenols – in fact, it’s up to 9x higher than what the standard extra virgin olive oil contains! – and those polyphenols have a slightly peppery taste. Our Original Extra Virgin Olive Oil has a naturally fruity, robust flavor and a slightly peppery finish and it is excellent on its own. But that said, we’re not afraid to put a modern twist to the classics! We wanted to stay true to our Mediterranean heritage, of course, so our two flavored oils – Garlic, and Greek Herb and Lemon – are a nod to that flavor palette. They complement most dishes but also add just a hint of added flavor to amp things up!
The Knockturnal: My family always taught me that the best thing for skin is more olive oil! It’s so genius to expand the brand into cosmetics, and also now deodorant. What was that leap like for you?
Katina Mountanos: Exactly, our skin is the biggest organ in our bodies, and what we put on our body, is just as important as what we put in our body. Olive oil as a beauty product has actually been a big part of many cultures, for many generations. Olive oil earned a permanent place on my mother and grandmother’s vanities. Other cultures have used it as a remedy for skin concerns like psoriasis or eczema, while others still use it like a hair mask. I wanted to create something that took the powers of extra virgin olive oil but could also be delivered in the best format suited for the application, so a skincare line was a very natural evolution for the brand.
The leap from food to skin care felt very natural. I’ve actually spent a lot of my career in the beauty industry and was very excited to bring a very clean, natural line of skin care to market that leverages extra virgin olive for it’s hydration and antioxidant benefits.
The Knockturnal: What other nourishing skincare products can we see in the future?
Katina Mountanos: We brought the Kosterina skincare line to market specifically to demonstrate the proven benefits of high polyphenol olive oil as it pertains to beauty, because the antioxidants also help to fight free radical damage, and to soothe, restore and help to regenerate skin cells. I think our first three products definitely accomplish that, and our goal is to continue to expand the line this year. However we wanted to make sure that these skincare products are a natural extension of the Kosterina ethos, that they not only encapsulate the wellness aspects of the Mediterranean lifestyle, but also meet the needs and interests of our customer base. So that could mean both creating new products that our customers are actively looking for, or even expanding fragrances to better capture the full Greek lifestyle!
The Knockturnal: What’s next for Kosterina, now that the brand occupies both the culinary and cosmetics space?
Katina Mountanos: We’re still quite a young brand – I only took Kosterina full time in 2020! – but we have accomplished a lot in that time, which I am very proud of. As Kosterina now straddles different but complementary industries, my hope is there will be more opportunities for better education around olive oil and it’s benefits. I’d love to help educate people on the benefits of the Mediterranean lifestyle.
For me, Kosterina is the direct way I can provide customers with access and availability to a very high quality ingredient and product, and I want to continue to do that. But in addition, I am also interested in education and advocacy, so that there can be meaningful change made throughout the industry. We’re one small business doing what we can now to shift public understanding of this very widely available product and we’d like to find partners in the same journey who can help us drive change.