Health Festival: Oxygen probably will never go out of fashion, but it's at the height of fashion now, judging from the Mind, Body, Spirit and Healing Arts Festival held last weekend.
Those who attended the festival queued for the chance to stick tubes up their noses through which they could inhale flavoured oxygen at one stand, and bought bottled water fortified with oxygen at another.
Both exhibitors were displaying commercial prototypes, one of which will be Ireland's first oxygen bar: a healthy antidote to our pub culture, one might say.
The other, an American firm called Healthy Water, says it is in talks with an Irish bottler with a view to launching a brand of oxygenated Irish spring water.
Both exhibitors also sold oxygen sprays and liquid concentrates, plus oxygenated skin creams. But isn't oxygen all around us, especially our skin Freely available, that is.
Not in these concentrations, the vendors claim, adding that it must also be in stabilised form or the benefits evaporate.
Asthmatics can particularly benefit from concentrated oxygen, they claim, but it can improve everyone. "Oxygen is one of the key things in healthy skin," said Barry Bessant, managing director of The Oxygen Experience, who offered a seat at his bar for 7 for five minutes. The benefits could come through a tube of cream or a nose tube, he explained.
Exercise could also bring oxygen to the skin, he agreed, but it's easier to sit and imbibe "Tequila Poppers" oxygen, for example.
At the bar, Karl Byrne, a UCD student from Bray, turns to his friend: "The Sangria's not doing me any good. I think I'll try the Summer Love." Asked if they would frequent an oxygen bar, there was a big exhalation. Unsure as yet, Mr Byrne's friend, Charlie Cannon, a student from Killiney, explained, "This is my first hit of oxygen."
The quick fix and a shift away from health towards simply feeling good are two of the characteristics distinguishing the show from its earlier incarnations, dating back to 1984. Two stalls offered "instant" benefits. Eyesential Beauty, promising "instant facelifts", had steady custom for its skin-tightening cream, popular with the likes of Barbara Streisand. It felt on my skin as I imagine Polyfilla grout might feel.
There were no spa and few leisure connotations to The Natural Health Fair, as it was known when I attended back in 1990. Nor were there many psychics, a big component of this year's show. Among them were Irish media figures and Betty Palko, a Limerick-born psychic consulted by Princess Diana, for whom there was a constant queue. "Hair reader" Ted Leyden from New Jersey was declared "amazing" by Sign Hayes, a software sales rep.
There were 200 exhibitors and an estimated 15,000 attends, said Barry Sullivan, one of the organisers. "The St Patrick's weekend show is more about mind and spirit while the one we have in October is more about health." A big new attraction was Kilraine photography, a method of recording a person's electromagnetic body; and the new indulgence was frozen yoghurt.