Clare Garden Festival will be held again on Sunday the 30th April. The festival provides a day out for all the family with great food and entertainment available and is a treat for all gardeners. Clare Garden Festival will be led by celebrity speakers from the gardening world bringing exciting talks for ornamental and vegetable gardeners and it will feature a vast Garden & Food Fair of over 60 quality stalls from all over Ireland. The venue Ennis showgrounds featuring a huge indoor arena as well as outdoor spaces and plenty of parking is conveniently located just off the M18 and in walking distance of the county town of Ennis.

"Clare Garden Festival aims to embrace all the different types of gardening and growers with different abilities and backgrounds. In my experience with gardeners all over the West, there is huge interest in talks and demos by enthusiastic and experienced growers. Whether it is a talk about Flowers and Shrubs or Potatoes and Tomatoes or a visit to a garden or park – the light-hearted, down-to-earth atmosphere and there's-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question attitude of gardeners as a whole are wonderful and infectious." says Clare Garden Festival organiser, Carmen Cronin.

Our Mindful Beauty Products that are made in Ireland with Wild Atlantic Seaweed, aromatherapy essential oils and other natural ingredients are available from our stall in the main Clare Garden Festival this Sunday in Ennis. We will be there whilst stocks last.  These should be of huge interest to gardeners as we use plant extracts wherever we can.

Make sure you check out our bestselling ArthroAroma massage oil for aches and pains. People tell us its wonderful to use and they keep coming back for more and more. see bottle below.

If your a tourist reading this we also do gift boxes. These are lovely gifts to bring back with you to your country. Check out our product range online here http://www.mindfulbeauty.eu/purchase.html

Come and check out the products and say hi

TWO FOR WAN Francis ‘Gok Two’ Lanuza (left) with famous fashionista Gok Wan when they recently met in Limerick.
By Ralph Quinlan Forde

Well it had been in the air since Foxford-based architect and visual artist Francis Lanuza arrived in Ireland a few years ago. Francis, you see, bears more than a passing resemblance to Gok Wan. In fact, so frequently have strangers mistaken him for the British style guru that he has been nicknamed Gok Two (though in Louisburgh, he’s been dubbed Gach Lá!). Then, last Saturday week, the stars aligned and Gok Wan finally met Gok Two.  

There were hints something was afoot when Gok Two was challenged by an OAP armed with a selfie device in a petrol station in Limerick: “Are you Gok Wan?” she demanded to know. She was disappointed do discover it was only Gok Two.

Then our friend Marie explained why the lady had been so convinced. His Holiness of Fashion and Wonder Bras was flying in the following day to appear in Limerick as part of his Fashion Brunch Club tour. An immediate scramble was made to find tickets to the event. All sold out. There had to be a way. Refusing to give up, Gok Two headed to the fashion brunch to try his luck. His brass neck paid off: HH’s entourage could immediately see the importance of enabling this ‘reunion’.

Plates and spoons were immediately fetched. A tense 30 minutes passed until Man of International Fashion and Dress Sizes Gok Wan swanned into a marquee of over 200 ladies … and two representatives from men’s haute couture.

When the eyes of styling and fame met the eyes of architecture and art, all that was missing was Cilla Black shouting ‘Surprise Surprise!’. Gok Two was immediately ushered on stage so he could be reunited with his spiritual twin. HH was delighted meet him, and enjoyed commenting that Gok Two was ‘skinnier and three stone lighter’.

When Wan asked Two where he was from and got the answer Co Mayo, a surprised Wan retorted, ‘I was expecting Japan, Korea, but Co Mayo?’ – to much laughter from the audience.

Throughout the show Gok Wan referred to Gok Two, passing on styling tips and complementing Gok Two on his own unique style. The day was enjoyed by all involved. 

HH’s fashion team were so on the ball; they were so attentive and professional.
The loveliest part was Gok Wan and his team enrolled and showcased local designer and boutiques. That was class! We heard a rumour that Gok Two might be hosting his new pal Gok Wan in Mayo in the near future for one of the Fashion Brunch events. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Meantime, Francis Lanuza – who became an Irish citizen last Friday – has recently been commissioned by Cloonakilla NS in Athlone to do a series of seven acrylic paintings and large-scale graphics for their newly constructed school building. The art will commemorate the old school building and use colours and forms to enhance the learning experience.
If you fancy going to one of the lunches yourself then check out Gok wans website here http://www.gokfashion.com/

This years Limerick Riverfest 2017 has kicked off. There is lots to see and do this bank holiday weekend. Limerick will become a mecca for families, foodies, fun runners and watersport enthusiasts during the May Bank Holiday weekend for Riverfest 2017! Highlights of the city’s premier summer festival will include Riverfest on the Shannon, the Riverfest BBQ Competition, the Riverfestival village in Arthur’s Quay Park, the Barringtons Hospital Great Limerick Run and a spectacular fireworks display.

Our Mindful Beauty Products that are made in Ireland with Wild Atlantic Seaweed, aromatherapy essential oils and other natural ingredients are available from our chalet in the main festival village in Arthurs Quay Park. We will be there till Monday or until Monday afternoon whilst stocks last. 

If your a tourist reading this we also do gift boxes. These are lovely gifts to bring back with you to your country. Check out our product range online here http://www.mindfulbeauty.eu/purchase.html

Come and check out the products and say hi

                                      Discover Your Beautiful Mind

Mindful Beauty has been a brainchild of mine for quite some time now. The aim of the range is to offer people natural cosmetics, as natural as possible, with botanical ingredients that are well-being & lifestyle enhancing. We are designing more and more certified organic products to be rolled out over the next 18 months. We were awarded the EU trade mark in January 2017 for the range to be sold in all EU member states.

We only test our products on homo sapiens which also makes them cruelty free. The products are also suitable for vegetarians and vegans.

I came up with the brand name Mindful Beauty and strap-line Discover Your Beautiful Mind because for over two decades I have been a meditator who has now trained 2,000 people on how to meditate. The ethos of the brand is to encourage people to also to learn to meditate and discover the natural beauty of their minds - clarity that shines out compassion, love, loving kindness and wisdom to the world and your own spirit. So much of our western lives are filled with distraction and we are conditioned to find solutions outside ourselves.

Mindful Beauty encourages people to look within and discover their human potential and possibilities for their lives.

Over €800 million worth of cosmetics are imported into Ireland (where we are based and where we have taught over 2000 people through a Mindfulness Meditation curriculum that I wrote www.learningtoexhale.ie). We aim to use some of the revenue to run training programs for vulnerable groups. Ireland at present has one in four people taking antidepressants, in comparison to one in twenty in the UK. The mindfulness solution could significantly reduce this number and enhance peoples lives.

We will also be running Mindful Beauty Days for well deserving nurses. These Days in collaboration with our partners will give groups of 20 nurses at a time half day spas consisting of: hot stone massage, reflexology, facial and manicure using the Mindful Beauty products which we happily sponsor.

We will be running all around Europe Mindful Beauty Self-Esteem, Resilience & Self-Compassion Masterclass Days.

The Mindful Beauty range is aromatherapy based and we use an entire range of high quality essential oils available when I am formulating the products. Did you know that it takes 2 tonnes of rose petals to make 1 litre of rose essential oil? So as one French aromatherapist said 'it's the purest form of living energy you can insert into man'.

My interest in natural medicine started when I was fifteen with food - allspice to wasabi. I was very taken up how natural ingredients could heal. So the formulas are based on years of my study of biotechnology, herbal medicine, aromatherapy, naturopathy, Tibetan Medicine and Chinese Medicine. The first time I got into cosmetics was when I went to work as a Biotechnologist at The Body Shop International HQ.

Since then I have had a dream to produce a range such as this. So here it is.
We also aim to only include ingredients that are safe and natural. We also use Wild Atlantic Way seaweeds in our creams and lotions. Having the products in recyclable plastic rather than glass reduces our CO2 footprint.

The products are also very affordable, having a price point of €9.99 retail.
Wherever you are, we appreciate your support of the range and we hope to start appearing in other EU countries over the next 18 months. As we evolve we will be bringing natural cosmetics to the market and in time, Food State Vitamins that will be 16 times more effective than chemical vitamins, Flower Essences, Herbal & Homepathic Medicines.

You can buy the products online or else at your nearest pharmacy. www.mindfulbeauty.eu

Thank you for your support.