The Waterless Beauty pioneer and leader brings its Mediterranean roots to Abbot Kinney, where 45,000 pounds of Spanish and Los Angeles soil form a physical connection between the land in Spain that shaped the movement and its next chapter in California.
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — On August 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, at 1335 Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice.
Living 150-year-old olive tree to open OLIVE TREE PEOPLE’s first U.S. flagship on Abbot Kinney Aug. 27.
Where one might expect a traditional ribbon-cutting or celebrity influencer to open the doors, OLIVE TREE PEOPLE is bestowing that honor upon the living olive tree. 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 three 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.
For founder Thomas Lommel, however, the opening is about far more than growth. It gives the olive tree the central place it has held in his life for more than two decades.
Lommel credits the trees with changing — and, in his own deeply personal account, saving — his life. Of his transformation, he says: “At the lowest point of my life, they suddenly appeared and gave me my confidence back. In the most difficult moments, they magically put a smile on my face. Through them, I found my innate trust, my faith, and the balance of my life. I owe the olive trees the way back to life.”
The opening comes just four days after the 23rd anniversary of the German company 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.
WATERLESS BEAUTY, ROOTED IN ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN WISDOM
Long before Waterless Beauty became an industry category, Lommel’s relationship with the olive tree began during a serious health crisis that brought the life he knew to a halt.
At 33, after years of building companies and pursuing what he once described as a life of “higher, faster and further,” Lommel entered what he calls his “time of silence” — a period of personal healing and soul-searching in which he began asking what he would choose if time and money no longer determined his path.
The answer was elemental: earth, trees and creative work under the southern sun. The thought of going south toward the olive trees, he has said, felt like “coming home.”
As he healed, Lommel immersed himself in the world of the olive tree, learning from local olive farmers whose knowledge of the fruit, leaves, oil and land had passed from generation to generation, while also studying the modern science behind the tree and its compounds. For Lommel, both were essential: ancient Mediterranean knowledge and the science that helped him understand why the olive tree had held such an extraordinary place in human life for thousands of years.
Lommel also began meditating among the trees and describes the connection he felt there as restoring his confidence, faith and balance. Together, the trees, the farmers’ knowledge and the science he was discovering gave him the power and conviction to keep moving forward — to continue healing, learning and growing, and ultimately to build a new life around the olive tree.
His journey carried him through Italy and the Mediterranean. In Apulia, he encountered an intensely bitter green olive-leaf elixir prepared from a recipe passed down through generations, deepening his fascination with the ancient knowledge surrounding the tree.
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. The treehouse also became the birthplace of Olive Tree Therapy — what he describes as a kind of Mediterranean Ayurveda, bringing together the olive tree, Mediterranean nutrition, botanical rituals, movement, meditation, silence and time in nature.
For Lommel, this was not about inventing an entirely new philosophy. It was about returning to something ancient and bringing it forward.
For thousands of years, the olive tree has been woven into Mediterranean traditions of beauty, care and well-being — a legacy reaching back to the ancient world of Cleopatra and Minerva and continuing through rituals passed from generation to generation. Lommel speaks of the power of the olive tree “from babies to beauty” — of something precious that has cared for people across generations, long before the modern beauty industry existed.
OLIVE TREE PEOPLE did not invent beauty without water; rather, it pioneered its modern return, bringing thousands of years of Mediterranean beauty wisdom together with contemporary science and modern skincare formulation. Modern water-based beauty only took hold in the early 1900s, and as Lommel studied conventional skincare formulations, one question became fundamental:
Why should such a large portion of a beauty formula be water when that space could instead be used for bioactive ingredients from nature?
That question became the foundation of OLIVE TREE PEOPLE’s approach to Waterless Beauty.
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,” said 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.”
A pioneer of modern Waterless Beauty, Lommel began developing the approach more than two decades before the category had a name. Today, Waterless Beauty is the fastest-growing sector in the beauty industry, and OLIVE TREE PEOPLE is the fastest-growing company in Waterless Beauty and the leader in its growth.
FROM ONE TREEHOUSE TO MORE THAN 70,000 PIONEERS
What began in a small Andalusian treehouse grew into a community of more than 70,000 Waterless Beauty consultants, whom Lommel calls the company’s pioneers — the human bridge between the grove and the world.
They believed in Waterless Beauty before it became an industry term and carried its products and philosophy into communities around the world, one conversation and one personal story at a time.
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.
Visitors will be able to experience the complete OLIVE TREE PEOPLE family of beauty and wellness brands, including OLIVEDA, LA DOPE, OLIVE ROSE, OLIVE MUSH, IS THAT MATTY?, and OLIVE re:connected to nature. Aestheticians, makeup artists and Waterless Beauty Consultants, the heart of the community that helped carry an idea born among the olive trees into the world, will host master classes, consultations and events on-site.
THE STORY BECOMES THE SPACE
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.
Throughout the flagship, sculptural structures inspired by olive trees rise through the space, their symbolic branches holding products in place of conventional retail shelving. Their towering presence reflects the way Lommel has long experienced the olive groves themselves: as a kind of nature’s cathedral — a place of stillness, awe and deep connection.
The architecture is symbolic, but on opening morning that connection becomes living. The frequency of a living 150-year-old olive tree still rooted in Spain will reach across thousands of miles to mark the ceremonial opening of the flagship in Los Angeles.
WHY ABBOT KINNEY
When Lommel first experienced Abbot Kinney in 2014, he felt connected to the neighborhood immediately: its diversity, the charm and individuality of its stores, its art and local creativity, and the feeling of a neighborhood shaped by people with something personal to share.
Long before a U.S. flagship was planned, Lommel knew that if OLIVE TREE PEOPLE were ever to create a physical home in Los Angeles, he wanted it to be on Abbot Kinney.
Twelve years later — and only three years after OLIVE TREE PEOPLE entered the U.S. market — that connection has become the company’s first U.S. flagship. Today, Venice is also the neighborhood Lommel calls home.
At the heart of the flagship, the future Olive re:connect room is currently in development. The dedicated space will further explore OLIVE TREE PEOPLE’s work with live olive-tree frequencies, sound and connection to nature — a vision rooted in the same belief Lommel has carried since his own “time of silence”: that physical distance does not necessarily end our capacity to feel deeply connected with nature.
PRESS PREVIEW & PUBLIC OPENING
Press are invited to a private preview of the OLIVE TREE PEOPLE flagship on Thursday, August 27, beginning at 10:00 a.m.
At approximately 10:15–10:30 a.m., the living 150-year-old olive tree in Spain will ceremonially open the Los Angeles flagship, with its live frequency transmitted in real time from Spain to Los Angeles.
Immediately following the opening, Lommel will share the deeply personal story behind OLIVE TREE PEOPLE — from the serious health crisis and “time of silence” that changed the course of his life, to the generations of Mediterranean olive wisdom and science that shaped his personal healing and learning, the creation of Olive Tree Therapy, his pioneering modern return to Waterless Beauty, and the community of pioneers who helped carry that vision into the world.
He will then lead attending media through the flagship, sharing the meaning behind its rammed earth made from the combined Spanish and Los Angeles soil, symbolic olive-tree-inspired structures and cathedral-like environment, complete beauty and wellness portfolio, and future Olive re:connect space.
The flagship will remain open exclusively to press until 1:00 p.m., with opportunities for interviews with Lommel, photography and video throughout the space, and hands-on product experience.
Press are encouraged to arrive at 10:00 a.m. to experience the live opening moment and Lommel’s presentation and tour.
The flagship will open to the public at 5:00 p.m.
OLIVE TREE PEOPLE
1335 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291
Additional media assets are available on request. Professional high-resolution photography of the completed flagship will be available following the opening.
ABOUT OLIVEDA INTERNATIONAL, INC.
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.
Lommel has more than 20 years of experience in the management and organic certification of mountain olive tree cultivation; the extraction of first-class, internationally award-winning extra virgin olive oils and hydroxytyrosol; and the production and distribution of cosmetic and holistic waterless products related to the olive tree.
Lommel is the inventor of Olive Tree Therapy 10 Years in 14 Days and of olive matcha, which is based on ground olive leaf. He also developed a unique coffee replacement based on olive leaf and hydroxytyrosol. In addition, Lommel is successfully active in the rapidly growing mindfulness industry through the olive tree sound bath meditation he developed and the frequencies of his olive trees, which he makes available worldwide.
OLIVE TREE PEOPLE’s registered beauty brands include OLIVEDA, LA DOPE, OLIVE ROSE, OLIVE MUSH, IS THAT MATTY? and OLIVE re:connected to nature.
Lommel is also the region’s largest conservationist and protector of more than 30,000 one-hundred-year-old mountain olive trees. Through the Thomas Lommel Foundation, he brings the water that he does not use in his waterless beauty products to the people of Africa by building water wells on site.
In addition to online sales, Oliveda Deutschland GmbH operates its own flagship stores in Berlin and Düsseldorf.
The brand’s treatment concepts are unique worldwide, and their effectiveness has been confirmed by conventional medicine. The story is documented in the book The Olive Tree Therapy 10 Years in 14 Days.
Waterless Beauty has been called “The Next Big Thing” in articles in U.S. Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, ELLE, Madame, Forbes and many other industry publications, as well as by Mintel, a world-leading futurology institute. Gigi Hadid and many other celebrities are already OLIVEDA fans and support its success.
Further information on Oliveda International, Inc. and its subsidiaries and associate companies and brands can be found at www.olivetreepeople.com.
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SOURCE Olive Tree People
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