Our Founder
“From Nature to Nature, it has generated us and with it we will regenerate. Medicinal plants are my passion: I think they should give continuity to the process that nature has wanted to start.”
Beatrice Anzuinelli
FOUNDER & TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
I grew up in a small rural town in Italy, with a family that has always embraced and understood the importance of living in sync and respect with nature. My passion for natural remedies stems from the teachings of my maternal grandmother Ileana, born in her father's estate surrounded by gardens of colorful flowers, from scented plants such as rosemary, myrtle and lavender to orchards, walnut groves and almond trees, from crops of wheat and corn to fallow fields of poppies, carpeted with wild blackberries and blueberries. I learned then about their use in cosmetics in the early 1900s or how to create flavoured bath water using rose petals, or how to make a brew extracted from the heart of the chamomile flower, or a dye obtained by boiling the shells of nuts not yet ripe to give golden and mahogany-colored hair.
Even as a child I was passionate about botany and learned to recognize the different types of flowers such as roses, peonies, lilies, oleanders and rhododendrons, and learned to appreciate the flower most loved by my great grandfather - Antirrhinum, commonly called Snapdragon. The common name, Snapdragon, derives from the particular structure of the lips of the flower, where if "choked" with fingers, the lips seemed to open exposing the mouth of the corolla. This was a game that I loved to play, as if these flowers wanted to talk to me.
The term "Antirrhinum" already appeared in Theophrastus. Dioscorides (370/286 BC) - the first botanical text which stated that the seed of the Antirrhinum mixed with lily oil could create the most beautiful face and skin. Following Aristotle’s death, the Lyceum of Athens (gardens and library), catalogued around 500 plants and gave the first definition of fungi. He was the author of
about 240 works ranging from physics to politics, from rhetoric to botany and zoology. One his most interesting works, a veritable encyclopedia known as "Historia Plantarum", took charge of a systematic classification of plants divided into three categories: trees, shrubs and grasses, describing roots, leaves, bark, fruits, habitat and how they reproduce. I consider fungi plants imperfect, because they have no roots, leaves or flowers.
My passion for botany led me to attend the faculty of Chemistry. Studying dermocosmesis and herbal medicine with scientific rigour and daily sessions in the experimentation laboratory, I discovered that the flower I so loved in my childhood - Antirrhinum - was used for medicinal use. The leaves (to be collected in spring before flowering) and the flowers just hatched (without collecting the cup). These products are then dried and used as infusions or as ingredients for creams as they contain mucilage and glycosides that have significant anti-inflammatory and soothing effects, used effectively on rashes. Even in ancient times (as mentioned above), this plant was much appreciated and used for its cosmetic properties.
