Los Angeles — On Aug. 27, a living 150-year-old olive tree rooted thousands of miles away in Spain will ceremonially open the first U.S. flagship of OLIVE TREE PEOPLE, the leader in Waterless Beauty, in Venice, Calif.
From thousands of miles away, the tree will open the Los Angeles flagship through its live frequency — connecting the company’s newest chapter directly to the olive grove where its story began.
The milestone comes only 3 years after OLIVE TREE PEOPLE began selling its products in the United States. Waterless Beauty is the fastest-growing sector in the beauty industry, and OLIVE TREE PEOPLE is the fastest-growing company in Waterless Beauty — the leader driving that growth.
The opening comes just 4 days after the 23rd anniversary of the German company that founder Thomas Lommel began in 2003. Giving a living olive tree the honor of opening its first U.S. flagship is, for him, a kind of homecoming across thousands of miles: an arrival in Los Angeles and a return to the trees, knowledge, silence and connection from which everything grew.
In 2001, Lommel acquired his first mountain olive grove in Andalusia: approximately 120 century-old olive trees. Too excited to sleep, he instead went into the grove in the rain and darkness and began building a small treehouse among them. There in that treehouse, Lommel experimented with olive leaves and began developing the green olive-tree elixirs that would become the foundation of OLIVE TREE PEOPLE’s formulations.
Today, its skincare formulations replace the conventional water phase with a bioactive, hydroxytyrosol-rich olive tree elixir derived from its mountain olive trees.
“Waterless Beauty didn’t come from a trend,” says Lommel. “It was born from years of living with these trees, protecting them, learning from them and trusting that nature already knows better than we do.”
For Lommel, the Los Angeles flagship extends far beyond a place to purchase beauty products. It is a physical home for the experience, philosophy and movement that grew from his relationship with the olive tree.
To give the OLIVE TREE PEOPLE story physical form, the company turned to New York architect Jeremy Barbour of Tacklebox Architecture.
Approximately 45,000 pounds of soil from Spain and Los Angeles are brought together and compressed using the ancient technique of rammed earth — physically and symbolically merging the Spanish landscape where Lommel’s journey with the olive tree began with Los Angeles, where OLIVE TREE PEOPLE’s next chapter is unfolding.
Oliveda International, Inc. and its subsidiary, Olive Tree People Inc., together with the European companies Olive Tree People Europe AG, Oliveda Deutschland GmbH and Olive Tree Farmers SL, were founded by German real estate investor Thomas Lommel. In addition to online sales, Oliveda Deutschland GmbH operates its own flagship stores in Berlin and Düsseldorf. For more information, visit www.olivetreepeople.com.
SOURCE: OLIVE TREE PEOPLE