Designer Cath Kidston to launch new body care line in Laois

Designer Cath Kidston is set to launch her new body care line in Ireland during an event in Laois in April. 

The English entrepreneur is one of the main speakers at the Festival of Gardens and Nature in Ballintubbert Gardens & House in Stradbally. This is a two-day festival of talks, workshops, organic cooking, garden tours, foraging classes and more which takes place on April 20 and 21. 

C.Atherley is Kidston's new body care brand which captures the soothing fragrance of scented geraniums. It is a collaboration with the founders of the London beauty brand Heathcote & Ivory.

Together they have created a new fragrance called Geranium No.1 to infuse products like body oils, lotions, bath salts and scrubs. 

The body care range will be launched at the Laois festival and after which it will be stocked exclusively online and in-store at Howbert & Mays garden stores in Dublin’s Monkstown and Clare Street.

Kidston's fascination with geraniums stems from her childhood when she learnt to crush the geranium leaves between her fingers to release the fragrance of this extraordinary plant. 

Her love only grew after she made a permanent move from London to her Cotswolds home eight years ago. 

“My big indulgence was to invest in a greenhouse, somewhere to house my ever-expanding collection of geraniums filling up the windowsills in the house,” she explains. 

As she added more geranium varieties to her collection so her interest in the plant deepened – she even took specimens to her new print studio to draw, which eventually inspired the packaging.

The Festival of Gardens and Nature will take place in Ballintubbert Gardens & House from 10am to 7pm on Saturday, April 20 and from 10am to 5pm on April 21. 

Tickets are €100 for a Saturday ticket, €65 for a Sunday Ticket or €150 for a weekend ticket.