Terre dei Papi

Terre dei Papi is an Italian skincare and body-care brand built around donkey milk, whose name translates as "Land of the Popes." It is rooted in Castel Gandolfo, the town in Lazio near Rome that served as the papal summer retreat from the 17th century onward. The line is produced by the Italian company Odelfe (O.Delfe srl), a pharmacology firm already active in donkey-milk supplements and foods [9]. No founding year is documented for the brand in any available source, and the brand's own site does not state one.

The company presents its products as "cosmetics with donkey milk," made in Italy from the milk of native-breed Italian donkeys and formulated with what it describes as exclusively natural active ingredients. The brand remains active: its products are listed and sold through Italian pharmacies and perfumeries and by several online retailers.

⚑ Thinner sourcing. The article relies largely on the brand's own statements (T2–T3). Glowpedia is seeking independent sources.

Sources differ on who founded the line. Italian lifestyle publication ISSIMO credits Federica Zavaglia, described as Italian-Canadian, who was raised in the countryside around Castel Gandolfo before moving to Canada [7]. By her account, she encountered donkey milk while working on a university marketing project for the biology department at the University of Windsor and found it, in her words, "a supercharge for the immune system" [7]. She has said her grandmother taught her homeopathic remedies during childhood summers in Italy, a background the line draws on. A separate editorial, FG Conscious Fashion, instead names two co-founders it calls "Alfredo and Freddie," without further detail [8]. Because the brand is family-run, these may be other family members; the Zavaglia and Odelfe attribution is corroborated by the retailer legal-entity listing and by an "O. Delfe" signature on the brand's own history page, so it is treated here as the primary account.

The brand ties its identity to Castel Gandolfo's papal heritage and to donkey milk's long history as a beauty ingredient, noting that it was used in antiquity by figures such as Cleopatra.

The line is produced by Odelfe, registered as O.Delfe srl, an Italian company described across retailer and editorial sources as already known for supplements and foods based on donkey milk; Terre dei Papi is its cosmetics line [9].

Terre dei Papi frames its approach as a meeting of "tradition and innovation, nature and science, past and future," pairing an old beauty ingredient with modern formulation. The company states that its products are hypoallergenic and suitable for all skin types and ages, with an emphasis on sensitive skin. It positions the range as a "100% Italian enterprise" and stresses the use of milk from native Italian donkey breeds that are, it says, strictly monitored and registered.

Donkey milk is the line's hero ingredient. The company states that its products contain a minimum of 35 percent freeze-dried donkey milk, equivalent to about 70 percent fresh milk, and highlights the milk's lysozyme and lactoferrin content along with omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. It describes the milk, drawing on its own promotional language, as being regarded by the scientific community as an "elixir of long life" able to counter the signs of ageing — a marketing claim rather than an independent finding. According to the brand, the milk is certified through the ALLEVASINI consortium and carries a "Key Organics Excellence" seal, with cold-chain handling and traceability.

The range spans face and body care. Named products include a redensifying donkey-milk serum, a tightening spray called Fluo, a cleansing fluid, a face mask, and a triple-action scrub, alongside body items such as the Dulcius body cream and Balneum bath milk, the Lomentum hand butter, the Purium soap, and Essentia, an eau de toilette. Products are grouped into the Linea Terrae and Linea Baby lines.

Ethics and sourcing are central to how the brand describes itself. Its products are stated to be cruelty-free, GMO-free, and free of parabens, nickel, sulfates, phenoxyethanol, mineral oils, petroleum-derived hydrocarbons, and synthetic colorants. The company says its donkeys are fed exclusively on plant matter, grazing hillside and mountain pastures away from pollution sources.

ISSIMO reports that roughly 350 free-range donkeys are raised in Tuscany's Maremma region, that foals are never separated from their mothers, and that only about one litre of milk per mare is kept for products, with surplus milk donated to neonatal clinics [7]. FG Conscious Fashion instead describes a donkey-conservation programme and plans to work with the Tuscan Amiatina breed at a new site near Siena [8]; both locations lie within Tuscany and may reflect expansion over time. For packaging, the company says it uses paper that is half recycled and half sourced from sustainably managed forests, printed with water-based vegetable inks.

The brand has been profiled in editorial features by ISSIMO, which covered founder Federica Zavaglia and the donkey-milk line [7], and by FG Conscious Fashion, which focused on its sustainability and donkey-conservation work [8].

Terre dei Papi is active. Its products remained listed and sold through 2025 by multiple retailers in Italy and abroad, including Italian pharmacies and perfumeries in the Rome and Lazio area and international sellers. The brand's own website, however, appears lightly maintained: it runs on a dated template still carrying placeholder contact details and defunct social links, suggesting the site itself has not been updated in some years even as the products continue to be distributed.