We’re All on a Mediterranean Beauty Diet This Summer. Here’s Why

When Lena Korres worked as a chemical engineer in the ’90s, she recalls a beauty landscape dominated by conglomerates. Giants like L’Oréal, Estée Lauder, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Coty controlled nearly all household personal care brands and often sold products that relied on harsh, synthetic ingredients (to ensure affordability, longer shelf lives, and consistency). Few independent skincare brands existed, and when it came to products made with natural ingredients, the options were just as scarce, she says.

Hoping to fill a gap in the market, Korres and her husband Giorgos, a chemist, launched their namesake skincare brand in Athens, inspired by traditional Greek remedies and ingredients. “Because we worked in a herbal homeopathic pharmacy, we knew herbal ingredients inside and out,” says Korres. The brand — which rejects heavily curated, quick-fix trends in favor of deliberate, slower paced rituals centered around wellness, skin health and authenticity — has steadily expanded, generating around $150 million in annual revenue and distributing in over 50 countries through major retailers like Sephora, Boots, and Ulta Beauty.

This month, Korres celebrates three decades in business, its longevity a testament to the enduring appeal of the Mediterranean. Already, fashion brands have been capitalizing on Euro summer and channeling the romantic Riviera lifestyle to drive sales. Now, beauty brands founded in the region — such as Rowse, In Aéras, and Furtuna Skin — are gaining global traction for their minimally processed, plant-based products and holistic approaches to wellness.

Growing interest in Mediterranean beauty aligns with the popularity of the Mediterranean diet, which has been the top expert-recommended diet in the US for seven consecutive years, according to a report from the US News and World. Many of the world’s oldest populations also live in or around the Mediterranean, with countries like Spain, Italy and Greece consistently boasting some of the highest global life expectancies — an achievement often attributed to diet, as well as active lifestyles and strong community networks.

Mediterranean aesthetics also appear to be more widely adopted, with the current summer beauty standard favoring a relaxed, sun-drenched look, with faux or real freckles, a radiant tan (real or faux) and effortlessly tousled hair. Hawaiian Tropic’s latest campaign, for example, features a sun-kissed Alix Earle, or the visual identity of brands like Rhode and Summer Fridays, which often feature skin-first complexions, wet-look hair and warm outdoor lighting that evoke an aspirational, vacation-ready feel. Shoppers, it seems, are responding. “This is so fun and cute. I’m sold on buying more Hawaiian Tropic products,” reads one of the top comments on Hawaiian Tropic’s video with Earle on TikTok, which has been liked by other users 807 times to date; the video itself has over 11,000 likes.

Meanwhile, the rise of Mediterranean beauty also coincides with the “touch grass” movement, which first emerged as viral Gen Z internet slang, telling chronically online individuals to step away from their screens. “The origins of the phrase were somewhat self-deprecating,” says Louise Yems, strategy director at The Digi Fairy, a youth culture and insights agency. “It was a reality check for people who were always online and that was detrimental in various regards. But it has become a tongue-in-cheek cure-all antithesis for the ills of the constant churn of the algorithm.”

Indeed, the trend has since evolved into a legitimate wellness movement, with people actively recalibrating their relationship with technology and seeking out beauty solutions that feel grounded, unhurried, and sensorial. “Ironically, the touch grass lifestyle became very visually appealing on social media,” says Yems, because “a lot of it speaks to a life spent in nature, in community, in peace. Somewhat therein lies your parallels with the Mediterranean lifestyle.” The proliferation of the term has also led to an expansion of its definition, she adds. “It’s now become a catch-all term for broadly spending time IRL and community experiences.”

Sui-Sien Donovan, senior creative strategist and editor at Morning, a creative strategy studio with clients including Nike, Louis Vuitton and Calvin Klein, shares a similar view. “We once looked to digital didacticisms like touch grass as simplistic truths, reliant on self-imposed lines to guide our behavior and preferences — online vs offline, screen vs grass, selfcare vs people-pleasing,” she says. “These prescriptive algorithm-led movements were then followed by optimized, LLM-era wellness.”

“Now, deeply subjective and intuitive manifestations of touching grass, aka prioritizing feeling as the ultimate measure of a good life, are resonating with Gen Z,” Donovan continues. “The recent low-cortisol summer trend quickly developed into a larger conversation about having a low-cortisol life. Now, embodiment and grounding can look like Sicilian grandpas sharing an antipasti lunch at the beach, young male fitness influencers taking a pause with their Topicals under-eye masks on, or city folk wearing Vibram Five Fingers to feel more intentional while stomping concrete.”

Some may view the cultural shift as performative, but Korres argues that Mediterranean beauty is anything but — particularly for deep-rooted brands who do more than take aesthetic inspiration.

One of Korres’s unique selling points is its use of local organic agriculture and in-house eco-extraction. The brand works with more than a thousand Greek family farms to source its ingredients, before formulating products in-house. “We bring the landscape and people into everything we do,” she says. “I think that is really quintessential to the Mediterranean lifestyle; it has to do with people and nature being in contact every day.”

Responsible local sourcing and delivering reliable, slow living-inspired beauty rituals are also core to Rowse, the Madrid-based beauty brand co-founded in 2018 by Nuria Val, a photographer and creative director, and Gabriela Salord, a marketing executive, whose paths first crossed while working in Paris. Their first product was a winter body oil, designed to protect and hydrate skin during the colder months. Eight years later, Rowse has expanded into skincare, makeup and facial treatments, offered in its two stores on Calle Argensola and Calle Vallehermoso in the Spanish capital.

Rowse was co-founded in 2018 by Nuria Val.

For Val, it was important for Rowse to be less reliant on silicones. While synthetic ingredients in beauty are generally not bad and considered safe to use, they do have cosmetic and environmental drawbacks. The occlusive property of silicones means it can trap comedogenic substances, such as dirt or oils, which tend to clog facial pores and cause blackheads or acne. For some, it may also trigger skin irritation. Silicones also vary in their biodegradability, with certain types unable to break down easily in nature and persisting in aquatic ecosystems.

Instead of isolating single synthetic ingredients, Rowse prioritizes nutrient-dense, antioxidant-rich formulas, powered by modern biotechnology and high-performance botanical actives, says Val. “Our ingredients come from the Mediterranean, because there are so many rituals here; people have been taking care of their skin for hundreds of years,” she explains — and what could be more reliable than a time-tested remedy? Among its bestsellers today is the Summer Hydrating Mist, a multi-tasking face, body and hair mist formulated with apricot, aloe vera, and carrot.

Plant-rooted formulations are also foundational to Korres. “We formulate with Greek yoghurt, Santorini grape, pure olive oil — ingredients that we know are part of the Mediterranean diet,” Korres says. “We formulate with the same ingredients because of their nutritional value to our body but also to our skin.” It’s resonating with shoppers, she adds, noting the brand has enjoyed 47% year-on-year sales growth driven by its Greek yogurt product franchise.

Korres’s Smart Yoghurt Probiotic Super Serum.

Staying true to Korres’s values has required some tradeoffs, however. “We don’t use retinol in our products,” she offers as an example. “Does retinol have benefits? Hands down, yes. But we choose not to use it, because it sheds off our surface skin cells at a very fast pace, so that the skin always looks fresh and new cells form.” Korres decided early on to avoid ingredients that were aggressive toward the skin. “As cells shed, you do not have a full epidermal layer to protect the skin. That goes against our purpose, which is to protect the skin,” she adds. “That’s the Mediterranean way of thinking. We don’t lead an aggressive lifestyle here; it’s very balanced.”

Digi Fairy’s Yem points to the growing online discourse around 2026 being the year of “the unoptimized summer”. In a wellness context, she explains, it refers to “being present in the moment” and enjoying life, “rather than being beholden to strict routines and wellness goals, like biometric tracking and Oura rings”, which have dominated wellness conversations over the past year. For some people, treating their daily existence as an endless performance review has simply become exhausting. It’s why a growing number of consumers have been turning toward ancient healing systems, such as acupuncture or ear seeding, which claim to calm the nervous system and restore balance.

The Mediterranean lifestyle, in some regard, also offers a welcome respite by prioritizing community connection and slow living, rejecting the endless grind. Think of long, uninterrupted meals with family and friends without screens or rushing; natural movement like walking or running to stay active instead of forced hard gym routines; and finding joy and contentment in simple, everyday pleasures rather than chasing material accumulation.