Zita Gyurkovics, the founder of Mar Galliti grasped the ritual-nature of cosmetics when she invited ceramic artist Tünde Ruzicska to design unique porcelains for her products. The latest pieces of the collaboration are the bottles designed for botanical perfumes that reach way beyond their function: spraying the scent on ourselves from the mystical bottles is not a simple routine, but poetry.
The daughter of the sea – this is what the name of Mar Galliti, the natural skincare brand founded by Zita Gyurkovics means. The Hungarian name Margit also comes from this Persian term – this was the name of Zita’s mom, who provided a lot of inspiration for creating the brand –, while the sound and meaning suggests some kind of light, airy, natural and ancient quality. Naturalness is one of the most important cornerstones of the brand, as the products are all made of plant-based ingredients, oils and extracts. Story-telling is just as important to Zita: the creams, serums and masks do not only enhance our beauty and keep us healthy, they take us to the forest, the bank of streams and meadows, and they also introduce us to slow living. Serving is an important part of this process – this is where ceramic artist Tünde Ruzicska enters the picture.
“I wanted to have a few ceramic accessories for the premiere event of my brand that matches the visual identity. The visual identity of the brand was designed by Lőrinc Szendeff, who already used Tünde’s ceramics as a background at the first photoshoot. The brand debut was the first project for Tünde and I, with vases, bowls and containers of various shapes and sizes being the result, but perhaps the drop-shaped plates evoking Mar Galliti’s logo are the most prominent pieces. The ceramics only had a presentation function at this point, in a unique context matching the brand, keeping a safe distance from the visuality of traditional cosmetics photos.“ – Zita told us. “One of the key values of my brand is consciousness, and creating with nature. I feel this is mirrored in Tünde’s ceramics, too, with a nice balance of artistic freedom and functionality.“
When Zita and Lőrinc were brainstorming on the bottles of the botanical perfume named Where The Wild Things Grow, the idea of enclosing the unique scents into porcelain instead of glass containers came up.
Even though ceramics primarily make many of us think of its use in gastronomy instantly, it could also have a function in cosmetics. “There are several functions in the field of cosmetics for which ceramics and porcelain could provide a fine solution. Containers, pots and bowls of various shapes and sizes can be made out of ceramics, in which the face or body creams and oils can be mixed and prepared, and I would also list perfume bottles here. Zita first asked me to create a ceramics collection for Mar Galliti, with the purpose of using them at workshops, shows and for installations. Creating the plates, bowls, hand-washing vessels, vases and oblong trays matching the brand both in terms of content and shape all formed part of this. Then I created mixing bowls for the Enzymes Peeling mask, these are already available in Mar Galliti’s online store. Finally we designed the bottles of the botanical perfumes together”– Tünde Ruzicska told us about the collaboration.
Based on the pieces completed, it’s obvious that there was a great accordance between Zita and Tünde during their work together. “Zita contacted me with defined and conscious ideas, inspiring motivation and enthusiasm from the very beginning. She has a crystal clear vision and feeling about the things that were needed to fulfil her idea and for value-generating solutions to be made. She brought the specific tasks, functions and I responded to them, then we molded everything together again until it became a total hit.” – reminisces Tünde. Both of them see a great potential in the common creative process, and so they gladly compromised on some matters. “I like these types of creative processes, in which empathy and work ethic is indispensable for creating new qualities. For me, compromising for the goal poses no problems, I like team work and thinking together, because it allows for the aggregation of values and something great comes into being.” – Tünde added. Zita has a quite similar attitude: “For me, creating together is when each and every one of us contributes their best knowledge and inspire each other to create something new and better than before or than what we can do alone. This is very important as it marks the road to development and learning.” Their success is best justified by Zita’s closing thought:
The ceramics have been adding the single thing that is most important in the case of every scent and product I have from the very beginning: the story. The message is important, may it be said and explicit or implicit and mystical.