The Lake Como Philosophy · Manifesto
Blevio, 1893: The Story of a Family That Became a Method
Before it became a scientific method, before it became a brand, there was only a family, a holiday villa overlooking the lake, and the curiosity to understand what a plant and a skin could do together.
Every family has a drawer nobody ever fully empties. In ours there is a coat of arms with three plants, a surname that in Lombard dialect literally means "leek" — the vegetable, not the skin blemish — and a wry humour the Porros learned to carry with pride rather than hide. There is also a book with a worn cover, full of handwritten notes, and some precision instruments that today would look more at home in a science museum than in a cosmetics laboratory.
This is not the story of a brand inventing a past in order to sound more authoritative. It is the story, told with the simplicity it deserves, of a family that always had an unusually intimate relationship with plants, skin and the balance between the two — long before "skincare" and "aromatherapy" became everyday words.
The surname, first of all
A surname that smells of the vegetable garden
Let's start with something that always makes people smile when they discover it: the surname Porro, in several areas of northern Italy, is also the dialect name for the leek. It is not an isolated case: the heraldic coats of arms of many families bearing this surname, ours included, depict precisely three leek plants, alongside an eagle.
For a family that today works every day with officinal herbs, roots and botanical infusions, this coincidence long ago stopped looking like chance. It became almost a destiny written, quite literally, into our own name — and a way of reminding ourselves, generation after generation, that our history with plants is not a recent marketing positioning, but something older and more deeply rooted than any logo could ever tell.
The family coat of arms, with the three plants that give the house its name
We did not choose plants. In a sense, plants chose us first, in our very name.Essenza Lago di Como
A family crest dated 1893, preserved in the archives
The late nineteenth century
Blevio, the villa, and the first experiments
It is in Blevio, in a villa overlooking the branch of the lake that faces Como, that the most concrete origin of this story is found. We are at the end of the nineteenth century: an era in which the great families populating the shores of the lake lived surrounded by meticulously kept gardens, and in which it was not unusual for someone in the household to devote themselves, out of passion rather than profession, to the study of plants and their uses.
In our family, this passion took a particular form: not the simple ornamental care of a garden, but a genuine curiosity about what the officinal herbs grown around the villa could do for the skin and for the mood of those who used them. Thyme, sage, oregano, jasmine — plants we would today call "the Complesso Lariano" — were then observed, gathered, infused, tried. There was as yet no codified scientific method. There was attention, patience, and the freedom to experiment that only real time allows.
The instruments
The scales that weighed more than ingredients
Among the objects the family has guarded most jealously over time are some precision instruments used in those very first experiments: analytical scales, glass containers, small workbenches. Objects that today, seen through contemporary eyes, seem to belong more to a period scientific laboratory than to a kitchen or a beauty atelier.
And this is precisely the point we care most about telling: from the very beginning, our relationship with botanical cosmetics was never merely aesthetic or intuitive. It was always accompanied by a desire for precision — weighing, measuring, noting down — which today, with Giovanni Angelo Porro, microbiologist and direct descendant of that same family, has at last found a rigorous, codified scientific method. Today's Porro Method did not appear from nowhere: it is the natural evolution of those scales preserved in Blevio.
Some of the original instruments used in the family's first experiments
A thread that never broke
From Blevio to today: the same question, generation after generation
What makes this story different from so many family narratives the world of luxury loves to tell is its continuity. We are not speaking of a heritage rediscovered for the occasion, but of a question that has remained substantially the same across the generations: what happens when the care of the skin and the care of one's emotional state are treated as a single thing, rather than as two separate worlds?
Today that question has a more structured answer, thanks to the meeting between the scientific rigour of Giovanni Angelo Porro and his son Diego's feeling for contemporary luxury. But the underlying question — the one born among the herbs of the Blevio garden, weighed on those very scales — has remained identical. It is that question, not an ingredient or a formula, that is the true heritage this family has carried through time.
Frequently asked questions
What you ask us most
Is the Porro family story real or a brand narrative?
It is the real story of the family behind Essenza Lago di Como: the origins in Blevio, the family coat of arms and the instruments preserved over time are part of an authentic family heritage.
What connects the family story to today's Porro Method?
The current Porro Method, developed by Giovanni Angelo Porro, is the scientifically structured version of an insight already born in the late nineteenth century in the family villa: that skin and emotional wellbeing should be cared for together, not separately.
Why tell the family story in a section separate from the rest of the blog?
Because it has a different tone and purpose: it does not explain an ingredient or answer a practical question, but tells the identity and values behind every product. That is why it belongs in "The Lake Como Philosophy" section.
Essenza Lago di Como
Discover where this story continues today
The Porro Method and the Complesso Lariano are the contemporary evolution of this family story. Discover them in the daily rituals of Essenza Lago di Como.
Essenza Lago di Como · Porro Srls · Via XXIV Maggio 6, 22063 Cantù (CO)
Tags
Altri articoli
The Essenza Lake Como Philosophy: Why a Daily Scented Ritual Can Be Good for You
We live among emails, notifications, social media and constant availability. Essenza Lago di Como explores the science of digital stress...
Inner Restoring: When Skincare Becomes a Sensory Ritual
Skincare takes care of your skin. Ritual takes care of how you experience that moment. CAREZZA, PVREZZA, SVPERIOR, and RVBINO...
The Feeling of Lake Como
Essenza Lago di Como turns the sensations of the Lake into rituals to be experienced on the skin, in the...