True Stories
Nourish the Skin and Relax the Mind with Italy’s Purest Botanicals: meet Prato Botanico
Crystal and Tom Gourley, co-founders of Prato Botanico
Together, both are thrilled to help share Italy’s highest quality organic skincare solutions to consumers worldwide.
Crystal holds a passion for achieving health via natural solutions whenever possible. As a child growing up in the desert, she remembers plucking aloe vera leaves from her neighbour’s yard to soothe her sun-parched skin, which eventually led to her long-held belief that Mother Earth provides all the ingredients our skin needs to thrive. Over the past decade, Crystal has researched the effects of organic ingredients and has promoted organic living to encourage a healthier, more sustainable existence for her children and the broader world.
Tom has more than 12 years of experience working as both an adviser and an investor to beauty companies around the world, including some of the largest and best known natural and organic cosmetics brands globally. After years of involvement in the growth and development of the natural and organic cosmetic sector over the years, he has a profound respect for the positive effects that natural and organic ingredients can have on individual consumers and our beautiful Earth.
NATRUE: How was Prato Botanico born? What defines this brand?
Crystal and Tom: Prato Botanico, Italian for “botanical meadow,” was born in the gently rolling hills of Italy’s Apulia region in 2020. Just as the Earth continually renews itself when given the needed care, our skin has the same innate ability if given the proper nourishment. Prato provides sustainable, high-quality, organic skin solutions that are both healthy for the skin and healthy for our beautiful Earth. Prato’s spa-quality products are clean, certified-organic skincare at its absolute finest.
As a brand, we hold ourselves to the highest standards when choosing safe, healthy, and effective ingredients and formulations. No synthetic chemicals are used in our manufacturing process and no products are ever tested on animals. Complete transparency is essential. We stand by each and every one of our ingredients and the processes that go into making our products. With an artisanal approach, including hand processing and small batch production, Prato Botanico lovingly crafts luxurious, high-performance skincare using only the purest of botanical extracts.
Prato Botanico is comprised of two teams—one located in Italy, focused on crafting the formulations and managing our end-to-end production, and one in the US, focused on global distribution and marketing.
NATRUE: Why do all your formulations center around organic ingredients from southern Italy? What is special about this area?
Crystal and Tom: Prato Botanico is inspired by the rich botanical heritage of Southern Italy. Well known for its organic agriculture, this region has more than 250,000 hectares dedicated to organic farming and an agricultural history spanning many centuries. The region is first in Italy in the production of organic olives, vegetables, and fruit, with local farmers adhering to extremely high standards. These small farmers produce some of the richest and highest-quality botanicals in all of Italy.
As part of the European Union, Italy refrains from using more than 3,000 banned substances that could cause harm to consumers and to the earth. By sourcing its ingredients from this beautiful region that is committed to organic living, Prato can consistently provide some of the world’s richest botanicals throughout its product formulations.
NATRUE: What do you understand by “clean beauty”?
Crystal and Tom: Clean beauty can be a rather broad term describing companies that utilize both organic/natural and “safe” synthetic ingredients. While Prato Botanico certainly considers itself a clean beauty company, we believe we strive for an even higher standard of clean. We provide certified-organic skincare products made with Italy’s best botanicals that do not contain any synthetic ingredients.
We do not test our products on animals and, with the exception of responsibly-sourced beeswax found in our lip balm, we don’t utilize any animal-derived ingredients. Beyond our formulations, we strive to have respectful and sustainable packaging as well, using Italian-made containers from glass and natural, unfinished beechwood. We can proudly say that our products are clean, pure and free of all harmful ingredients, according to the high standards of the EU.
NATRUE: And what does Natural Fragrance mean?
Crystal and Tom: Natural Fragrance means all of our fragrances come from natural plant botanicals and essential oils. In some countries “natural fragrance” allows for traces of synthetic ingredients. However, at Prato Botanico, all of our fragrances are made of 100% natural and botanical ingredients. No synthetic ingredients are used in our formulations or in our manufacturing process.
NATRUE: Why did you choose NATRUE? What is the value of the NATRUE Label for Prato Botanico?
Crystal and Tom: NATRUE is unparalleled in its commitment to further establishing a clear standard for organic and natural products. We believe their efforts, in concert with partner brands, will have an immeasurable impact on the health of consumers, now and well into the future. We chose the NATRUE Label because they focus on certifying entire brands that are fully committed to organic and natural, not just individual products.
At Prato Botanico, we want our customers to understand our purpose in providing luxury, sustainable skincare that meets the highest standards of organic. There are relatively few brands that hold the NATRUE certification, particularly in the USA, and we wanted to demonstrate the seriousness of our commitment to organic by establishing this important affiliation.
For more information about Prato Botanico, visit
https://www.pratobotanico.com/
Download this interview here.