We haven’t yet met Catherine Logue, founder of Hibernicis – the seaweed-powered bodycare brand that we showcased as our Fab Find of the Week, here – but we hope to. One look at that face tells us that we’d enjoy time in her company. Wisdom. Kindness. Intelligence. A twinkle.

Dividing her time between the wild west coast of Ireland and her homeland of Australia, Catherine is busy building what, to us, is a very timely beauty brand. As she explains, ‘In a world ever more tainted by pollution and compromised natural resources, Ireland is a country of profound and pristine beauty filled with a rich abundance of historical health enhancing rituals and ingredients.’

Still, living between two hemispheres while building a beauty brand is quite something to juggle. So we thought she’d be a perfect candidate to share the secrets of wellbeing that keep her balanced – and twinkling!

The power of touch, connection with animals, is so important to me. I can’t pass a dog in the street without stopping for a chat and pat. The poor owners stand by helplessly scratching their heads . I do thank them for indulging me though… eventually… Cats… birds … any animal or insect come a close second. My Irish husband was horrified when we first married as he watched me carry big hairy spiders and the like outside to relative safety (or become the next tasty meal for a bird). He now performs the same action on a regular basis.

I take the concept of stopping to smell the roses to the extreme. From smelling dogs paws (you would not the first person to conjure up the image of Cruella De Ville!), to crushing and inhaling leaves as I walk.  The smell of a briny ocean, damp or dry earth, plants in their glorious multitudes are a joy. I greedily inhale the aroma of certain flowers, herbs and spices, sometimes leaving me breathless. I also love the aroma of petrichor, the smell of impending rain that  takes me back to my childhood in country Australia. Because aroma is incredibly important to me, I take time personally to blend the aromas in each of my products.

For me, there’s nothing more relaxing than float therapy. I love floating in a warm sea listening to the murmurs of the sea. Being at one with nature… I also love lying on the grass; it’s so calming and grounding and is my version of bliss. Lying down on the ground releases all tension and anxiety.

I really try avoid overused words and phrases. Overuse, as in so many things in life, takes away its very power – and in this case, the written or spoken word; the beauty industry, like so many, is riddled with them. But as the French say, ‘the exception confirms the rule – and mine would be, alas, swearing a tad too much!

Food, wine, chopping herbs, grinding and roasting spices – once again, that joy of aroma. Our daily lives remove us incrementally away from that which sustains us. The basic skill of creating nutritious food with fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices that miraculously present themselves in their own packaging are tragically in decline, opposed to processed overpackaged food in single use plastic. This is one of the thousand cuts leading to the death of this planet. We need to claw this back the skill of food preparation and appreciation, person by person.

Green is my favourite colour. it can evoke absolute beauty, and in its extremes, a certain kind of ugliness. A colour akin to chartreuse is the colour of Hibernicis, to me, reminiscent of first bud burst in spring as one ambles through the Irish countryside.

Art moves me. We were taught in art school to turn to nature for design and the older I get and the more exposed I am to the incredible world of design this rings utterly true. You only have at Gaudi, Zaha Hadid or Milad Eshtiyaghi to see how their work is  a constant nod to nature. 

Find Hibernicis’s bath, body and hand care, priced £39-69, at hibernicis.com

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