Stories,Beauty

Vintner’s Daughter — Award-Winning Sustainable Skincare Brand

California

Julia Goodell.  June 25, 2024

Inspired by the vineyards of Napa Valley and the winemaking process, April Gargiulo founded the skincare brand Vintner’s Daughter on principles of efficacy and sustainability. While pregnant with her first daughter, Gargiulo began scrutinizing the ingredient lists of her preferred ‘luxury’ skincare products, discovering that many contained synthetic fillers and low percentages of active ingredients. In 2013, Vintner’s Daughter was born prioritizing quality ingredients and meticulous production over faster, cheaper alternatives. Gargiulo was guided by three core missions: delivering quality skincare, fostering confidence in beauty, and making a positive environmental and community impact.

 

Vintner’s Daughter is a women-owned business dedicated to sustainability. It is a certified B-Corporation, California Green Business, and Climate Neutral. The company’s sustainable practices include responsible sourcing, eco-friendly packaging, emission offsetting, and cruelty-free testing, as evidenced by their Leaping Bunny certification. Additionally, the company supports earth advocacy, donating 2% of every purchase to organizations including Every Mother Counts, Black Mamas Matter, Futures Without Violence, Color of Change, Girls Not Brides, New Story, Black Lives Matter, OLE Health, Vitamin Angels, NAACP, Project Night Night, National Women’s Law Center, Black Future’s Lab, Dress For Success, charity: Water, and Tipping Point, all of which support and educate women and children worldwide.

 

Vintner’s Daughter honors the time-tested techniques of ancient apothecaries. Both the Active Treatment Essence and Active Botanical Serum undergo a three-week infusion process to harness the full nutrition of whole plants. Key botanical ingredients in the Active Botanical Serum include alfalfa, avocado, bergamot, calendula, and rose hip. All ingredients are 100% natural, and free from added sulfates, parabens, phthalates, synthetic fragrances, PEGs, and SLSs.

 

Committed to quality, Vintner’s Daughter creates products that deliver multiple benefits, reducing the need for numerous items and thereby conserving natural resources. For Vintner’s Daughter, less is more.

 

Q & A WITH April Gargiulo — FOUNDER VINTNER'S DAUGHTER

Mood of Living : When did your parents start growing vineyards in Napa Valley? How did your parents’ passion for sustainable agriculture influence what you do today? What values did your parents teach you?

April Gargiulo: They bought their first vineyard, Money Road Ranch, in 1992 and their second vineyard, 575 OVX, in 1998. Early on, I remember asking my dad why we spent so much time on the quality of the grapes and the meticulousness of formulation. And he told me we owed it to our land and our collectors. He also told me that if he was going to make a wine, it had to be great and one he would want to drink for years to come because what if no one bought it. When I began formulating our first product, Active Botanical Serum, I often thought about that conversation. I didn’t know if anyone would ever want to buy Active Botanical Serum, so I thought I might have to use it all myself. So if I was going to make it, it had to be the best and something I would want to use for years to come.

MoL: What or who inspired you to work in design firms in NYC? What did you do at these companies? How long did you work in this industry?

AG: I am passionate about design and architecture and searched out the design firms in NYC that were working with some of the greats in modern design and architecture. My last job before I left NYC was with Vitra, a Swiss company that has always been a thought leader in the space. It was so interesting and fun to see behind the scenes of some incredible projects during that time.

MoL: What influenced your decision to go back to California after working in NYC?

AG: I moved to Napa after 9/11. I had been living in NYC for 5-6 years at that point and that event propelled me towards family and nature.

MoL: When did you become interested in your family business and learning about winemaking?

AG: I love the community of Napa Valley and everything it stands for in the world of fine winemaking and cuisine. The passion for excellence is something that I find very inspiring.

MoL: What motivated you to create your plant-based, performance-driven skincare business, Vintner’s Daughter? Why did you go into skincare?

AG: Like many first-time moms, when I was pregnant, I started looking at the ingredients in many of the “luxury” products I was using. I was shocked to find that many were made from .01% active ingredients and low-quality synthetic fillers that were in many cases harmful. Coming from where I was coming from, none of that sat right with me. I come from Napa Valley, a community dedicated to making the finest wines in the world through meticulous attention to detail and craftsmanship. Short cuts are not allowed and practically every grain of dirt is considered for its quality.

 

I believe that to make the finest of anything whether that be a meal or skincare, you must begin with the highest quality raw materials. The example I like to use is the difference between a meal replacement bar made in a lab from synthetic ingredients and a beautifully prepared meal made from the freshest, local and organic ingredients. We know which choice is better for our bodies, our environment and our communities. The same can be said for skincare made from the highest quality natural ingredients versus extracts and synthetics. This is what led me to create Vintner’s Daughter. I wanted to build a true luxury skincare company that made products from the finest ingredients in the world, using time-honored techniques in order to bring about profound and lasting balance and health in the skin.

MoL: What guiding principles from winemaking do you apply when sourcing and

formulating your skincare products? What does luxury mean to you?

AG: The same ethos that fuels the passion behind fine winemaking is what fuels my quest to make the finest skincare. If I didn’t have a background in fine winemaking and had I not been exposed to the incredibly dedicated and quality-obsessed people of Napa Valley, I would never have been able to create Vintner’s Daughter. Like fine winemaking, our formulations begin by sourcing the world for the finest quality plants and then honoring those plants through weeks-long, temperature-controlled processes.

 

When I first began looking for a place to make Active Botanical Serum I was turned away over and over again by the top labs in the country. They told me that no one makes products the way I wanted to. The labs told me that they would only do it if we changed our formulations to use “faster, cheaper” alternatives. Coming from the winemaking world where a bottle of wine takes 3 years to make, 3 weeks felt like nothing to me. Had I not had that strong respect for what we lovingly call “the speed of quality” or the time it takes to make something truly exceptional, I would have backed down and accepted their lower-quality options. Being from Napa Valley allowed me the confidence in my vision for something truly different and uncompromising in its commitment to quality, performance, and safety.

 

Luxury to me means beginning with the finest raw materials and honoring them through the most thoughtful formulation practices to achieve something even greater than the parts. It is about how something is made, what it is made from and the intentions behind its production. Each of these factors must meet very high standards of quality, craftsmanship, and meaning to be luxury. To me, true luxury has nothing to do with price, and everything to do with the passionate pursuit of ultimate quality.

MoL: What are the benefits of your plant-based products? What plant(s) do you utilize in your formulas? How are they beneficial to the skin? What is so unique about your formulations and your production process?

AG: Our formulation process is a study in the methodical attention to detail and adherence to the highest levels of quality. Uniquely, we begin with whole plants sourced from conscious growers around the world. They are amongst the most nutrient-dense botanicals in the world and have been revered since ancient times for their multi-beneficial, healing properties.

 

Our time-honored formulation methods occur over the course of weeks versus industry-standard hours and ensure that the full spectrum of these incredible plants’ skin-beautifying nutrition is captured and delivered to the skin with every drop. As a result, our formulas are made from the same nutritive structures as the skin and are able to communicate in a deeper way to amplify the skin’s own powers of healing, regeneration, and balance, to create real and lasting change.

 

It is hard to pick a “hero” ingredient because each of our ingredients is a superstar, chosen for its multi-beneficial effects on the skin. What I would point to as our hero though is the way in which we assemble each of these extraordinary ingredients into our proprietary Phyto Radiance Infusion. If there was a secret sauce, this would be it. It is at the heart of every product we make. Over the course of three temperature-controlled weeks, we gently extract the full spectrum of nutrition from the world’s most nutrient-dense whole botanicals so that with every drop, our formulas deliver optimal skin-healing nutrition. There is nothing else quite like it because it creates a level of communication and intimacy with the skin that allows the skin to become its absolute best.

 

We just completed our first clinical testing, and the results were incredible. I knew they would be, but it is validating to have the actual perception and instrumented results to prove it.

MoL: Why was it important to you for Vintner’s Daughter to become a B–Corp? How difficult was the process? What are your sustainability commitments?

AG: From day one we have focused on impact in three major areas. Number one, of course, is skin and having a profoundly positive impact on our community’s beautiful skin. Number two is our commitment to Positive Beauty. So much of the Beauty world is focused on creating fear and insecurity in order to drive product sales. We only want to inspire confidence, joy, and gratitude in our community, and we do that very consciously through the words and images we use and more importantly, the words and images we do not use. The third leg of our impact stool is our environmental and community impact. We have woven sustainability and giving back into every decision we make at Vintner’s Daughter from day one. So, while the B Corp process is long and very detail-oriented, we didn’t have to change anything that we were doing. I also love the measurement tools they provide which we didn’t have before. It allows us to set goals around our environmental and social impact.

 

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention our 2% give back of every purchase made to charities benefiting women and children. Our community is who makes this all possible and we are always so grateful for their incredible support.

MoL: What advice can you give to the next generation interested in creating their own company and making a positive impact in the world?

AG: Have a very clearly defined mission. Pursue it with heart and hustle. And surround yourself with joyful, smart, hard-working people. The road is long and having a great team around you is everything.

Photography courtesy of Vintner’s Daughter

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