The story behind Kinvara’s Irish and English packaging.
If you have picked up a Kinvara product lately, you might have noticed something new.
Alongside the English on our packaging, you will now find Irish. Gaeilge. Our own language, on our own products, made in our own corner of the west of Ireland. In 2025, we became the first Irish brand to give English and Irish complete 50/50 parity on our packaging, and it is one of the innovations I am proudest of. The story of how it came about might surprise you, because it started thousands of miles from home.
When we brought Kinvara to Canada, we had to meet Canadian labelling rules. Over there, packaging has to speak to people in both of the country's languages, English and French. That is the law, and it is a good one. It says that people deserve to read about what they are putting on their skin in a language that is truly theirs.
That stopped me in my tracks. If all of our packaging abroad had to be dual-language, why on earth was that not the norm at home? We are an Irish brand, named after an Irish town, made on the Atlantic coast. If we were making room for another language to welcome our Canadian customers, then making room for our own was not just right. It was long overdue. We wanted to lead by example.
"Why shouldn't Gaeilge be part of everyday experiences like our skincare routines?"
Many of you will know that Kinvara is not a made-up name, but that of a real place: a small town on the west coast, where the land meets the Atlantic and the edge of the Burren. In Irish, it is Cinn Mhara, which means head of the sea. That town, and those wild land and seascapes, are the reminders we carry with us every day to keep our products pure, natural, and made to the highest standard. Our name has always been Irish. It made no sense that our language was not there on the pack beside it.
If you look closely at the new packaging, you will find another piece of Ireland embossed there too: the Knowth sundial. Knowth is one of our great ancient sites, neighbouring Newgrange. Its stone carvings and markings speak of timeless knowledge, of people who lived in step with nature and the seasons, and of the deep creativity of early Irish craft. We chose it because it says quietly what we hope the whole pack now says: that we are grounded in Ireland's story, carrying old symbols forward in a way that feels modern and completely our own.
There is a phrase we use a lot around here: We Speak Your Language. We have always meant it as a promise about really listening to our customers, understanding their skin and their lives in a way that the big multinational brands never can. Irish brands listen well, and we serve our customers in a way the big box names simply cannot. Putting Ghaeilge on our packaging is that same idea, made real and put in your hands. And the timing feels right, because Irish is having a sustained revival: you hear it in music, in schools, across social media, alive and everyday in a way it has not been for a long time.
The change was right for another reason too. We were already moving to our new branding, and rather than change things piece by piece, we took the chance to bring it all together. Our older packaging served us well but is now on its way out. From here on, Kinvara shows up on your shelf as one brand, with one look and one voice. Clean, consistent, and unmistakably ours. English and Irish together, and French too, where our Canadian friends can find us.
For a shop like Evergreen, that matters. When a customer picks up a Kinvara product, everything from the design to the language tells the same story. And I hope that when a customer turns a jar over, sees their own language looking back at them, reads the label and maybe even says the words aloud, it feels like a small, quiet bit of pride. Their language, in their hands, in the most everyday of moments.
We have always said that Kinvara is good, does good, and feels good. Putting our language on our packaging does not change what is inside the bottle, but it does say something about who we are and what we value: people, product, and planet, and the place and the culture that made us.
Le grá,
Joanne
