by Mayté Rodríguez Cedillo & Fernando Favela
photos Courtesy Marine + Vine

There is a particular kind of courage required to walk away from a career built over decades and begin something entirely new. Evelyn Ginossi had that courage — though she would be the first to tell you it arrived slowly, shaped by long summers in the South of France, a personal health wake-up call, and an enduring frustration with body care that looked beautiful on the shelf but delivered nothing of substance. What emerged from that frustration is Marine + Vine, an eco-luxe body care line that has earned a quiet but devoted following among travelers, spa directors, and women who believe their skin deserves the same standards they apply to everything else.

From Real Estate Law to Ritual
For more than 25 years, Evelyn Ginossi operated at the highest levels of business transactional law — the kind of work that demands precision, discipline, and an almost obsessive eye for what is real versus what merely appears to be. When the real estate market collapsed in 2008, she found herself, like many in her profession, at an unexpected crossroads. Rather than rebuilding within the same walls, she moved to London, started a leaner legal practice, and gave herself room — for the first time — to travel without agenda.

Those summers in the South of France changed everything. Poolside in Lourmarin, surrounded by vineyards, olive groves, and almond trees, she discovered body care products that simply did not exist back home: clean, effective, and genuinely luxurious in the way only European beauty can be. She filled her suitcase with them every visit. Then she started asking why no one in Los Angeles was doing the same thing — and why so much of what passed for “clean” beauty in the U.S. still contained over 1,300 chemical ingredients banned under EU cosmetic regulations.

The answer, she decided, was to build it herself. With the same methodical rigor she’d applied to contracts and compliance, she spent two years developing her first product — not rushing it, not cutting costs, not compromising on fragrance, ingredients, or packaging. Tahitian Oil launched in January 2019 at the Indie Beauty Expo in Los Angeles and received awards and special placement from its very first trade show. It had taken more than $30,000 and thousands of hours. It was worth every one of both.

The Ingredient at the Heart of Everything
Marine + Vine’s hero ingredient is monoi — a sacred Tahitian oil made by infusing fresh tiare flowers into refined coconut oil for a minimum of ten days, under strict French law governing its production in French Polynesia. The result is one of the oldest and most effective skin treatments in the Pacific world, used for over 2,000 years for hydration, sun protection, and ceremonial ritual. Evelyn paired it with kukui nut, passionfruit, and macadamia seed oils — all high in omega fatty acids and antioxidants — and worked with a French fragrance house that shared her refusal to use phthalates, parabens, or silicones.

The Tahitian Oil that resulted is a dry body oil that absorbs quickly, leaves no greasy residue, and delivers a radiance that reads less like product and more like skin that has simply been well cared for. The Tahitian Balm follows the same philosophy in a richer format: cocoa and shea butters, olive-derived squalane, and the same signature tropical oil blend, designed for drier areas and cooler months. The Nomad Rose Hand Cream rounds out the line with a rose-forward formula for hands that travel. Each product is vegan, cruelty-free, and made in California.

A Return to Tahiti — and a New Beginning
In early 2024, Evelyn Ginossi’s mother passed away. In the months that followed, she did what the grief-stricken sometimes do when the ordinary world offers insufficient comfort: she traveled. Her destination was Tahiti — the island that had given her brand its soul and its hero ingredient, but which she had never visited. She arrived without a plan, following only instinct through tiare fields, jungle trails, and villages where the ancient monoi ritual is still woven into daily life.

What she found there was more than healing. It was a recalibration — of the brand, of its formulas, of its relationship to the place it had always drawn from. Marine + Vine today carries that renewed spirit: still rooted in the California ease and French elegance that defined its origins, but now connected directly and personally to Tahitian tradition. The brand’s tagline, Give Your Skin Paradise, has always been an invitation. After that journey, it became something closer to a promise.

Body Care as a Destination Experience
For the luxury traveler, Marine + Vine occupies a specific and increasingly relevant niche: the kind of product that elevates a hotel bathroom from functional to ritualistic. Its packaging — French glass, screen-printed by hand in London, palm fronds and gold lettering — belongs on a marble vanity at a Four Seasons or a boutique spa in Todos Santos. The brand launched in exactly those environments: Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills, Indian Springs Calistoga, and Shen Beauty, with a distribution philosophy that favors premium hotels, destination spas, and boutiques in key travel markets.

This is body care designed to make you feel, as Evelyn has said, like you are in those hours between a full day outdoors and getting ready for a night out — the best hours of any vacation. For travelers who carry their rituals with them, who refuse to let the quality of their skincare lapse simply because they are away from home, Marine + Vine is not a luxury indulgence. It is a travel essential.

BAJATRAVEALER® TAKEAWAY
Marine + Vine is what happens when a lawyer’s discipline meets a traveler’s obsession with the beautiful and the clean. Evelyn Ginossi spent two years and far more money than planned to get this right — and it shows in every bottle. If you are the kind of traveler who believes the ritual of taking care of your skin deserves the same intention as choosing where to stay, this is the brand that has been waiting for you.