From the Sardinian secret of longevity to natural cosmetics

The Officina della Salute is situated in Ogliastra and is where Bruna Farci creates wellness products obtained from the essential oils of her land.

What do the island of Ikara in Greece, the Okinawa archipelago in Japan, the Nicoya peninsula in Costa Rica, and Loma Linda in California have in common with the Officina della Salute? They are Blue Zones, geographical areas where the longest living people in the world live.

Let us explain: the Officina della Salute is located in Sardinia, both in the center of Cagliari and at Forte Village Resort in Pula. But behind the oils, creams and tonics made by the Officina della Salute there is an area, Ogliastra (one of the Blue Zones) that Dr. Bruna Farci founder and CEO of the Officina knows very well. She was born there and lived in Escalaplano spending her first thirteen years in this magical province, where everything seems to flow very slowly. Even the lives of its inhabitants: Farci underlines this, "My uncle Alfio, at the age of 100 decided to start reading I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed) again, while his sister Aurora, also close to a century, until recently drove to Cagliari to come and visit me ". A graduate in Languages she says "As a girl I dreamed of travelling and at 23 I had a position in a bank based in Germany. This allowed me to travel around the world. Here I met my husband Alberto, a notary and great sailing enthusiast whose family owned several private clinics and for this reason I ended up working there too."

The pharmacist can see the difference between the lifestyle of the elderly in the clinics and that of those she had met as a child in Ogliastra: "The former, far from an active life suffered from various pathologies. Therefore, I came to the conclusion that if I graduated in Pharmacy, studying natural well-being products obtained by using essential oils from the centuries-old olive trees of Ogliastra, I would be able to recreate that uniqueness suggested by natural well-being".

This was the beginning of another turning point for Dr. Farci, whose visual representation of a project is to be found entirely in a building in via Angioy in the heart of Cagliari, home to the Officina della Salute: "One day, I noticed this historic building which was a San Francescan convent in about year 1000. Then subsequently in 1856 it was rebuilt by the Sardinian architect Gaetano Cima. I fell in love with it and it reminded me a lot of a building belonging to the first homeopathic pharmacy in London."

From the city to the names in Sardinian is a short step: Mother Nature's Oil S'Ollu is our flagship product, but there is also Cilixia which means dew, Carignu de Bentu, caress of the wind, and Oru de Janas which stands for fairies, "who have given us the gifts of beauty and strength. The same qualities that the footballer Gigi Riva had, the champion who recently passed away. “I remember Gigi very well, sometimes he stopped by our shop; always taciturn, sensitive and ready to help everyone", concludes the pharmacist. It seems as if she is reviewing the meaning of life passed on to her three children: Cristina, Gaia and Mario Alberto. Heirs of natural beauty.