Take a sneak peak at details of our forthcoming Lavender Harvest Sale....everyone welcome to come along! 

Barbara represented Fragrances of Ireland on Radio 1's 'The Business Show's Sports Day' last Saturday and did us proud. For their end of season show they celebrated with a Sports Day. As part of the Comets, captained by former Rugby Captain Ciaran Fitzgerald, Barbara competed in the egg & spoon, hurling relay, penalty shoot outs and tug of war...although the winning trophy was stolen from their grasp with some dodgy numbers on the tug of war, a great day was had by all. To catch up with the festivities tune into the podcast & you can find it on - http://www.rte.ie/radio1/thebusiness

We also had our very own World Cup draw here in the office – based on the remaining 16 countries in the competition. All very exciting and lots of fun, and whoever’s team gets to the final and wins, has a nice money prize to take away with them! (It won’t be me anyhow – I had USA!!!!)

Still basking in sunshine here in Ireland which makes life a little brighter all round. Take a look at the shot below of poppies dancing in the summer breeze just outside our offices – we are so lucky to have the opportunity to appreciate nature – and right on our doorstep!

Ireland is still basking in beautiful sunny summery weather and long may it last! A great excuse for everybody to down tools and forget about the normality of everyday life and make the most of the lazy sunny days of summer. Have a look below at some locals celebrating Bloomsday in Sandycove recently in typical Joycean style. For those of you who do not know about Bloomsday, it is a ficticious Irish day held every year on June 16th to celebrate Leopold Bloom, a character in Irish writer James Joyce's famous book Ulysses. In Dublin itself, where the novel is set, it is traditional to dress up and go out for the day visiting the locations of the book and taking part in readings, walks and various activities which in some way connect with Ulysses, its author and its world. All of that, coupled with perfect sunshine made the day this year a huge success!

 

And now to something far more local - we in Fragrances are fast approaching our Lavender Harvest sale which will take place on Sat & Sun 10th & 11th July and also Sat & Sun 17th &18th July here at our premises in Kilmacanogue. It's a day not to be missed - come along and emerse yourself in the world of lavender. Get some freshly cut lavender bunches, lavender plants, lavender oil, soaps, bath, perfumes & much, much more! We will remind you nearer the time and worth keeping an eye out in local papers for more information!

And so our office makeover is finally complete - the old ironcast sign 'Fragrances of Ireland' went up on the side of our building yesterday - much prettier than the more modern neon signage generally used today. Each letter of the sign has been cut from sheet iron and is in existence as long as the company itself. A touch of paint and it's almost like new again!

 And finally our lavender field is getting ready to bloom - the flower heads are just forming and in no time at all there will be rows and rows of lavender hue as far as the eye can see - but not all is going according to plan - take a look at the pink bloom above amongst our lavender sprigs - a weed alas!, but then again nature although beautiful is rarely perfect!

Wow! Take a look at the photo below - some dolphins spotted by our very own MD David, in the Sandcove area of Dublin on June 6th. They seem to be following the yacht which is heading towards Dun Laoghaire. David contacted Padraig Whooley in the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (www.iwdg.ie) to endeavour to identify the species and Padraig was confident to say that they were bottlenose dolphins who had also been sighted that evening a little further north near Blackrock by several observers.

This is quite exciting for us in Fragrances of Ireland, as we have always had an interest in promoting awareness of environmental issues and helping to solve them and as a result we had established a close relationship with the IWDG many years ago in conjunction with our Inis cologne. To this day we continue to be a core funder of the IWDG and in particular, a main sponsor for Whale Watching Day which takes place on a designated day in August each year in various coastal towns around the Irish coastline. However in the history of the relationship between Fragrances and IWDG we have never been fortunate enough to witness a sighting first hand........until now! Well worth waiting for!!

 

Our office makeover is now complete! Take a look at the before and after shots below.

We are now blue on white, rather than purple on cream - a fresh and uplifting appearance to our premises which is complimented by the blue summer skies and sunshine and of course a reminder to all of 'Inis cologne' in our true Inis colours.

You could almost feel you were in Greece now rather than County Wicklow with the whitewashed walls of our building standing out amongst the background of trees, shrubs and summer sunshine.

And....we all feel uplifted as a result. As the saying goes.....'A change is as good as a rest!'

Oh happy days!! Ireland is basking in temperatures way into the 20s at the moment and we're loving it!! Sun...sun...sun all the way, far from the freezing snowy weather we experienced only a few months ago. Ironically though, despite the sunny weather which we have craved for for so long, here in Fragrances of Ireland we have been working on our Christmas Gift Sets for 2010. Yes, you heard...Christmas!! We are always thinking months ahead here at our offices and have finally gotten the artwork designed and completed for our Christmas gift sets. We are delighted with the finished products and we know you will love them too as all our products are designed & created with you our customer in mind!! So...even though we are experiencing some fantastic summer weather here at the moment we can't help but be fickle and think..roll on Christmas!!!

Take a look below at the wonderful photos taken recently of rose petals drying in our yard, primrose in bloom in the woods just near our offices, and beautiful apple blossom from the trees just near our offices.

We are thoroughly enjoying days and days of glorious sunshine here in County Wicklow at the moment and all hoping that it is here to stay. With the beautiful, sometimes cloudless blue skies and the radiant sunshine everybody appears to have a spring in their step!! And that includes Sharon, Claire and Leeanne here in our office,who have recently taken to spending their daily lunch breaks walking around the scenic Rocky Valley area, here near Kilmacanogue! Beautiful weather to appreciate such wonderful scenery and at the same time getting fit and healthy. Keep up the good work girls!!!

On a more serious note, we have just had a Customer Service strategy review and update this morning. All geared of course to going that extra mile for you our customer and to let you know how much we appreciate your support. We are all very aware of the importance of customer satisfaction and as a team, we are committed to continuing to provide a first class service to you. If you have any issues or would just like to express your opinion, or make a suggestion, on the service we offer, please send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it   and we will be delighted to hear from you.

We have started a big painting job here in Fragrances of Ireland. Our whole building is getting a face lift and what better colours to paint it in, other than our very own Inis blue and white!! Rodz is busy painting at the moment but when the job is nearer to completion we will have some images to show you. Take a look at the one below - this is our premises covered in snow in the recent heavy snowfall which took Ireland by surprise!

We are also getting ready here for our annual Lavender Yard Sale which will take place on Sat & Sun 10th & 11th of July next. Preparations are in the pipeline and we hope that it will be bigger and better this year. With our Lavender Harvest as the theme, customers will have the opportunity to purchase freshly cut bunches of lavender and bottles of our locally distilled lavender essential oil, along with a range of Sweet Lavender scented products which contain some of the lavender oil distilled at Kilmacanogue every July. Other Product ranges which will be available include fragrances, vegetable oil soaps, lotions, hand creams and shower gels. So watch this space for further details coming soon...!

So Barbara finally got home from Secaucus, New Jersey despite the ash-laden skies and following a very successful trade-show for Fragrances! Thankfully air traffic seems to be slowly returning to normal after so many people's travel plans all round the world had been foiled by the volcano in Iceland last week

While Barbara took to the skies, Carole our rep was doing her usual drive around Ireland to meet with and update our irish customers. Log on to our facebook page (click on 'f' logo at end of page to access our profile) to see the wonderful images of our rep's travels, especially the most recent one which is also here below - the grey heron bird getting a lift in Galway!!! Wonder where he was off to??