OliPhenolia, Cosmetics

A source of hydroxytyrosol and other polyphenols from the fruit water of biodynamically cultivated olives

What dietary supplements are and how they differentiate

In food science dietary supplements (also known as food supplements) are products taken orally, in association with our daily diet, to integrate specific substances. Beginning with the first and most widespread, mineral salts, today there are thousands of supplements on the market. Products containing every kind of ingredient, for all needs. European Directive 2002/46/CE regulates this sector, defining food supplements as follows:
"foodstuffs the purpose of which is to supplement the normal diet and which are concentrated sources of nutrients or other substances with a nutritional or physiological effect (including, but not limited to, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, fibre and various plants and herbal extracts), alone or in combination, marketed in dose form".
Dietary supplements can be differentiated according to the body’s needs (lack of vitamins or mineral salts, need for antioxidants, anti-ageing or anti-inflammatory compounds, etc.) or to the ingredients. The latter classification can be further divided into substances in their natural state – that’s to say as they’re found in nature – and substances resulting from physical biochemical processes, carried out in laboratories.

Organic and biodynamic olives from La Vialla

Even though some of the fruits of the earth are real “panaceas” (for example turmeric, tea, cranberries, red grapes/wine, cocoa, aloe, olives, etc.), generally speaking, more than curing, supplements are aimed at balancing certain components of the diet, in particular vitamins, mineral salts and polyphenols. We recall the famous phrase of the renowned Greek physician Hippocrates (5^th century B.C.): “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”.

What OLIPHENOLIA is

OLIPHENOLIA is a 100% natural liquid dietary supplement, from olives and olive leaves from biodynamic agriculture (Demeter certified); a natural source of bioavailable polyphenols (amongst which hydroxytyrosol) that have antioxidant properties. In two versions – bitter and sweetened with grape must – all you have to do is drink it and it’s easily absorbed. It is made with the fruit water produced when olives are pressed (without the use of heat or chemical solvents), in its original state: a dense, dark brownish liquid with purple highlights.

It originates in the olive mill, during the olive picking season, when the extra virgin olive oil is separated from the pulp and water contained in the fruit. This water is then cold-filtered in order to further concentrate the polyphenols contained in it. OliPhenolia is a genuine extract of olive fruit water, an incredibly rich source of polyphenols from fresh olives, which are cultivated biodynamically by Fattoria La Vialla.

During production the olives are split into extra virgin olive oil, fruit water and pomace

The antioxidants properties of hydroxytyrosol

Olive polyphenols have excellent antioxidant properties. The polyphenolic properties of extra virgin olive oil are well-known and widely studied. But the substances contained in the other part of the fruit, the so-called “fruit water”, are equally valid; this is because the majority of olive polyphenols are water soluble. Among the many that have been identified, one in particular has aroused the interest of international food science. Hydroxytyrosol, which is found in olives in a high concentration. The numerous studies published so far concur in considering it one of the most powerful natural antioxidants among the known principles of plant origin. In nature, hydroxytyrosol is only found in the fruit and leaves of the olive tree. Just for reference, the ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) value of hydroxytyrosol is 40,000 µmolTE/g, roughly ten times greater than that of green tea.

How OLIPHENOLIA was created

As often occurs, “our elders” were right about things that modern times had relegated to the category of curiosities or superstitions. Nonna Caterina (1902 - 2000) – grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother of the Lo Franco family – during the olive pressing season had the habit of drinking, a couple of times a day, half a glass of “acqua mora” (= dark water).

This expression is used here in Tuscany for the water contained in olives and olive leaves that, after pressing, is separated from the oil, which is lighter (this is done mechanically, by centrifugation). What’s more, “acqua mora” has a very bitter taste, so Nonna Caterina left everyone agape. But, resolute as always, she didn’t care...

Nonna Caterina with the farmers at wheat threshing time

April 1980: Piero Lo Franco and Nonna Caterina

In recent years the scientific community has discovered that this water is overflowing with olive polyphenols (more than the oil itself: the proportion is 1:20!), in particular hydroxytyrosol, verbascoside, oleuropein aglycone, 3,4-dhpea-eda and many others, which are delicate water soluble molecules.

In 2010 at the Fattoria, thanks to the support of the Famiglia Lo Franco Foundation, a project was initiated with the aim of enhancing the numerous, valuable substances contained in this olive fruit water – it was given the name “OLIPHENOLIA®”. For olive mills this olive fruit water is usually simply waste water, which is also costly to deal with due to its high acidity and bitterness. Qualities that, at the same time, make it such a precious substance. At La Vialla it has always been used as a resource: the fruit water is added to the biodynamic compost, where it matures for 6-8 months and then returns to the ground – in the form of a fertile amendment – to complete the natural cycle. But it is much more than this. Now, finally, it can also be used as a “food”: once filtered and concentrated (with a simple cold-filtering process), it becomes a precious antioxidant for human health.

What OLIPHENOLIA is used for and what its polyphenols do

OLIPHENOLIA can be defined as “freshly squeezed polyphenol juice”, which is easy to use as a supplement in a well-balanced diet. As you will find out further on, one little jar of this product contains a concentrate of polyphenols: the liquid, once pressed and separated from the olive oil and pomace (a waste material), is concentrated through cold-filtering. To make a comparison, 235 mg (the average amount contained in a jar) is the quantity of polyphenols found in roughly 300 g of freshly picked olives.
Polyphenols, such as the ones in olives, constitute a family of substances of plant origin comprising over 5,000 molecules; they are produced by the secondary metabolism of plants and, through their main function as natural antioxidants, they protect the plant from parasites and pathogenic agents.

Where are polyphenols found in nature?

They are found in different concentrations, bioavailability and types in fruit and vegetables, and can therefore be consumed daily thanks to a well-balanced diet. For the human body, as for plants, they principally function as antioxidants, first and foremost fighting free radicals. Free radicals are highly reactive molecules, formed during oxidative processes caused by external factors (UV rays, junk food, smoke, alcohol, smog, etc.), or natural processes such as ageing. They can modify other “healthy” molecules to which they link themselves, deteriorating them (in the human body, fat cells, proteins, etc.). Polyphenols, with their characteristic heavy double bonded molecular structure, have a preventive action, stopping free radicals from linking themselves with other molecules, or can even be protective, trapping them and thus causing them to become inactive.

Olives and olive leaves contain the highest concentration, which varies from one tree to another, one area to another and from season to season, depending on the stress to which the plant is subjected.
Scientific research over the last 20 years has shown, in many different studies, that these molecules act by positively modulating certain physiological processes in the human body.

How OLIPHENOLIA is made

Every year, from mid-October to the beginning of December, there’s one place at the Fattoria where work never stops: the olive mill. Throughout the day (and night) the freshly picked olives arrive, to be pressed as quickly as possible, so as to preserve their flavour, aroma and... polyphenols.
After removing the majority of the leaves (but not all of them, because they also contribute to the flavour and polyphenol load) the olives are rinsed quickly and then enter the mill. Protected from oxidation thanks to the cupola filled with nitrogen (patented by Fattoria La Vialla), they are ground between granite millstones, which slowly transform them into a thick paste.

This olive paste (a mixture of flesh, juice, stones, leaves and oil) is then centrifuged twice. The first time separates the extra virgin olive oil from the wet pomace. This wet pomace then undergoes a second, cold centrifugation, which separates the dry pomace from the water contained in the fruit (Nonna Caterina’s "acqua mora”) which is reclaimed for reuse.

OLIPHENOLIA is extracted by filtering and concentrating this aqueous part of the olives (the olive mill waste waters or “olive fruit water”) with the use of ceramic membrane technology and reverse osmosis; solely through mechanical cold filtering, without the use of chemical solvents or heat.

This state-of-the-art method (considered a B.A.T. or Best Available Technology) was studied and elaborated with the specific intent of preserving the integrity of the delicate polyphenolic molecules, and required more than two years of research and trials by Dr Massimo Pizzichini (ENEA) and his team, which led to a patent being filed.

Scientists Dr Daniele and Dr Massimo Pizzichini

Growing and processing olives

As always at La Vialla, technology only counts for a part of the product.... The rest, the essential part, is all about our work as farmers – that’s to say the olives, growing and processing them. In fact, to obtain good extra virgin olive oil and, consequently, olive fruit water that doesn’t contain harmful chemical residues (which are unfortunately common in conventional agriculture), when growing, harvesting and pressing the olives certain essential rules must be followed.

First of all, it’s essential that the land is not contaminated. The use of pesticide is forbidden, because such products would ultimately make the flesh of the olives a waste product, contaminated with chemicals. The strict organic-biodynamic methods used in the Fattoria’s olive groves are therefore imperative.
Other essential factors are: early harvesting (so that the olives are less ripe but contain more polyphenols), correct storage of the olives, in small crates, during transportation; pressing carried out straight after harvesting (which is possible at the Fattoria thanks to our own – carbon neutral! – mill, built on purpose a stone’s throw from the olive groves...) and in a controlled atmosphere to reduce oxidation of the olives to a minimum.

The process is simple, a closed cycle, so that the entire olive is used: the extra virgin olive oil, the olive fruit water used to make OLIPHENOLIA and recover the valuable polyphenols, and lastly the pomace, which, after composting slowly with all the Fattoria’s other waste products, returns to the ground to bring new fertility to the soil.

Lastly, to compensate the extremely bitter taste of the polyphenols, the concentrate is mixed with grape juice (for a slightly “sweeter” version of OLIPHENOLIA) or with lemon juice (to leave a more natural taste and create OLIPHENOLIA Bitter). The resulting liquid is put into little glass jars and pasteurised rapidly at a very low temperature (approx. 79 °C), in order to maintain all the components integral.

A closer look at what OLIPHENOLIA contains

Despite the use of the sophisticated technology described previously, OLIPHENOLIA is a completely natural and seasonal product that cannot be reproduced “synthetically” in a laboratory. The specific contents (quality and quantity) of each jar vary from year to year, from season to season, but it’s precisely the natural mixture of different polyphenols contained in it that give it unique properties, which don’t strictly depend on the concentration of the individual components, but integrates and enhances them. Every single pack of OLIPHENOLIA contains information on the results of the analyses carried out, illustrating the polyphenol content.

But, in any case, let’s take a more in-depth look... A little jar of OLIPHENOLIA contains, on average, over 50 mg of hydroxytyrosol, one of the most studied polyphenols, which, in nature, is only found in olive fruit water, olive leaves and olive oil (in lesser quantities). It also contains verbascoside, tyrosol, chlorogenic acid, 3,4-DHPEA-EDA, oleuropein aglycone and other polyphenols that haven’t yet been identified, for a total of approximately 280 mg of polyphenols... all together, and what’s more extracted in a natural way, they make OLIPHENOLIA a phytocomplex with a high concentration of antioxidant molecules, rare to find even in a well-balanced diet. To make a comparison, 235 mg (the average amount contained in a jar) is the quantity of polyphenols found in roughly 300 g of freshly picked olives. The concentration of polyphenols in a good extra virgin olive oil is approximately 250 mg per litre, while in OLIPHENOLIA, on average, it’s over 9,400 mg per litre; this means that a single 25 ml jar of OLIPHENOLIA contains more polyphenols than 1 litre of extra virgin olive oil!
OLIPHENOLIA – a dietary supplement that is 100% natural and biodynamic – is a “unicum” that cannot be reproduced chemically, a phytocomplex created by nature in which all the components interact and synergically exert an action that is greater than their sum, as biodynamics also teaches us.

Biodynamic cosmetics and skin-care products made with OLIPHENOLIA

The use of olive oil as an organic cosmetic (before the term even existed), dates back to time immemorial. The use of olive oil for personal care and hygiene was rooted in the culture of all the ancient Mediterranean peoples, from the Greeks to the Romans; it was used as an anti-inflammatory ointment, a moisturiser, an anti-oxidant, regenerating remedy and a beauty oil.
Olive fruit water, on the contrary, is still relatively unknown even though particularly interesting for the production of organic cosmetics, because it consists of water and stable compounds that are well suited to similar products.

La Vialla’s cosmetics with OLIPHENOLIA are unique because they are made with over 65% of certified biodynamic (Demeter) ingredients, the olives. Both their oleic and water-soluble phenolic components are used, in addition to the valuable fatty acids, tocopherols and vitamin E contained in the extra virgin olive oil. The rest is liquid obtained by filtering the olives’ fruit water, and a small percentage of other ingredients of plant origin. And it comes from a closed production cycle that is good for both the health of our skin and, at the same time, the preservation of our planet. In the dynamics of global advertising, the public’s attention is artfully centred on the active ingredients contained in the various creams – usually very small percentages of the total content – hiding in the background the actual composition of the rest of the product, which makes widespread use of petroleum derivatives (petrolatum jelly and oil, parabens, silicone, paraffin, etc.) ingredients of animal origin, even from industrial livestock farming. This is why, today, part of the scientific world and – finally – of public opinion, believes that certain types of cosmetics are unhealthy and unsustainable.

In 2015 La Vialla began to work with RSC Pharma, in Giessen, an important German pharmaceutical laboratory, partner and executive director of which is Dr Thomas M. Schmidts, a client of the Fattoria. Motivated by the research and growing number of articles published on the polyphenols contained in olive mill waste water, he managed to convince the Viallini (initially very hesitant: for them it was a field that had nothing to do with all the Fattoria’s other work) to undertake a series of studies in order to use the properties of OLIPHENOLIA on skin, in cosmetic products that are totally natural, organic and meet the strict biodynamic criteria.

Dr Thomas Schmidts, in the centre, with colleagues Dr Peggy Schlupp and engineer Sören Wildenhain

The results were not long in coming: after research and experiments (recently the results of these studies were published in the scientific journal “Cosmetics” www.mdpi.com) La Vialla surrendered ….after all the skin, the largest organ of our body, needs good “nourishment” – its health bears witness to the wellbeing of the entire body.

Dermatest certification

To verify their tolerability and effectiveness, the products were tested for 4 weeks on 20 volunteers (or children from 0 to 3 years of age), in a clinical cosmetic application study carried out at the renowned Dermatest institute. All the volunteers tested the formulations according to dermatological and clinical criteria, without the skin showing sensitivity, undesired or even pathological reactions.
The products received the highest distinction – Excellent 5-star.
On average, 90% of the volunteers confirmed that their skin was smoother, softer, generally improved in quality, after just 4 week of application.

What’s more, further Dermatest clinical trials also certified the following effects: for the Intensive Serum – improvement of skin hydration by 54% and reduction of wrinkles and skin imperfections by 24%; for the Face Cream – improvement of skin hydration by 25% and reduction of wrinkles and skin imperfections by 15%; for the Hand Cream and Body Balsam – improvement of skin hydration, respectively by 32% and 53%.
In short, the tests demonstrated excellent hydrating, emollient, anti-age, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, putting La Vialla’s cosmetics amongst those that work effectively. In particular the Face Cream has an excellent anti-wrinkle effect. For the new Nourishing Cream and Olive Salve, developed for the extremely delicate skin of babies and children (but also that of many adults), a tolerability test was carried out on children from 0 to 3 years of age (resulting in the 5-star seal of excellence), and a skin-protection test (Noxae with irritation) on adults (dry and very dry skin) which highlighted the protective effect. These products are also indicated as a cosmetic aids for the treatment of neurodermatitis.

The properties of the OLIPHENOLIA range

RSC-Pharma’s team of scientists – headed by Dr Thomas Schmidts from the institute of biochemical engineering and pharmaceutical technology at the Mittelhessen University of Applied Sciences, in Gießen, Germany – has managed to demonstrate, in its in vitro experiments, that the polyphenols contained in a purified extract of olive mill waste water (also known as olive “fruit water”) significantly contribute to the health and regeneration of the skin and that they contribute to the wellbeing of healthy cells. This action can be reassumed in four properties: 1 – antioxidant; 2 – anti-inflammatory; 3 – anti-germ; 4 – anti-age (regenerative).

A range of natural biodynamic (Demeter certified) cosmetics

In collaboration with Biodermic Health & Beauty GmbH & Co. KG, in Gießen, Germany, renowned for creating innovative cosmetics (they collaborate with dermatologists, chemists’ and universities, and have received various awards for research projects – see www.biodermic.com), we have created an Intensive Serum, a Face Cream, a Hand Cream, a Body Balsam, an Olive Salve and a Nourishing Cream for the face and body, all made with OLIPHENOLIA and other ingredients from organic-biodynamic agriculture (such as extra virgin olive oil), all produced by Fattoria La Vialla.
These ingredients, which are natural and Demeter certified, constitute between 65% and 90% of each product, while the remaining ingredients – amongst which hyaluronic acid, vitamins E and C, shea butter – are in any case permitted by the strict Demeter regulations for biodynamic cosmetics.
What’s more the Viallino cosmetics do not contain parabens, PEGs, phthalates, phenoxyethanol, mineral oils, sodium lauryl sulphate, silicone, substances of animal origin (except for beeswax in the Hand Cream), colouring agents or preservatives (in accordance with the EC Regulation on cosmetic products), and they have neutral skin pH.