One of the more in­ter­est­ing tid­bits about the K2K twin sis­ters Kathy and Karen Nor­man, is that they don’t just see them­selves as “de­sign­ers”, nei­ther do they call them­selves such. With a back­ground in In­ter­na­tion­al Busi­ness with con­cen­tra­tions in Fi­nance and Mar­ket­ing, their for­mal art train­ing is in draw­ing, paint­ing - fine art, with the core study be­ing the hu­man form and Pi­cas­so’s the­o­ry of cu­bism. At heart, these sis­ters are artists, rather than de­sign­ers.

Ar­lene Bartholomew-Singh who proud­ly hails from the Ari­ma com­mu­ni­ty, is a moth­er of four, grand­moth­er of six and as many know, the pres­i­dent, own­er and de­sign­er of Asa Mar­ket where she makes cus­tom-de­signed fash­ion, jew­ellery and art pieces.

Style is every­thing! Some say “im­age is every­thing!” Same dif­fer­ence! What is de­light­ful is see­ing my peo­ple in their el­e­ment! And oh boy, was this ap­par­ent at this year’s in­stall­ment of Car­ifes­ta. I love see­ing my peo­ple ex­ude that in­can­des­cent style which is so quin­tes­sen­tial­ly Caribbean in all its man­i­fest in­car­na­tions.

There are times when you can ig­nore a lit­tle flash of pain in a tooth, and there are times when a tooth de­mands your at­ten­tion by mak­ing you wince in pain. You may not al­ways know what to do when this hap­pens, sim­ply be­cause you may not know why your tooth is hurt­ing.

Judy Granger is the own­er/man­ag­er of La Grange Nat­u­rals, es­tab­lished in 2016. She is a ‘soaper’ as called in the in­dus­try and makes hand­made, nat­ur­al bath and body prod­ucts. Due to her own health com­pli­ca­tions, Judy sought to rid her­self of ex­cess chem­i­cals by cre­at­ing a line of all nat­ur­al skin care prod­ucts. Here is what she told Health Plus in a re­cent in­ter­view.

Many per­sons do their best to pro­tect their lives from harm and threat of death, es­pe­cial­ly with the rise in crime and vi­o­lence. Iron­i­cal­ly, sta­tis­tics from the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) 2014 re­ports show that on­ly 11 per cent of deaths in Trinidad and To­ba­go are caused by in­juries (to in­clude vi­o­lence and road ac­ci­dents). Non-Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­eases (NCDS) are re­spon­si­ble for most deaths in the coun­try (80 per cent). How­ev­er, are we equal­ly do­ing enough to pro­tect our lives from NCDs?

“Could the will we lack, with ref­er­ence to the ne­glect of our health, be an un­der­line for self hate? Are we a so­ci­ety of in­se­cure peo­ple who try to se­date our in­ter­nal pain with ma­te­r­i­al things so much that we don’t pay at­ten­tion to our health un­til it’s way too late? Could it be that we see the ex­ter­nal things as an ex­ten­sion of our­selves and those things be­come more im­por­tant than the in­ner man? Were we taught the wrong set of val­ues by the folks who be­lieve in the on­ly val­ue they knew and were will­ing to die by? Could it be that we self sab­o­tage in in­sid­i­ous ways dai­ly? Could it be that we live our lives try­ing to avoid chal­lenges and there­fore as a so­ci­ety the more we think we know, the less we know?’

The me­dia plays a huge part in the lives of this gen­er­a­tion’s teens. So­cial me­dia apps are flood­ed with pic­tures of glam­orous peo­ple liv­ing even more glam­orous lives. Teens are usu­al­ly en­gulfed by the false re­al­i­ties por­trayed on these ap­pli­ca­tions, a huge part com­ing from the way they view them­selves. While the In­ter­net does a lot to pro­mote body pos­i­tiv­i­ty, the men and women who ap­pear on these apps, mag­a­zine cov­ers and on TV are usu­al­ly sport­ing the bod­ies of su­per­mod­els and ath­letes. This gives teens a false idea of what the world per­ceives as ‘beau­ti­ful’ or ‘sexy’ and they as­pire to look like their idols on the In­ter­net.

Are you look­ing for a high-fat food that’s good for your health? Well look no fur­ther, that’s al­monds. They are high in mo­noun­sat­u­rat­ed fats that have been linked to low­er­ing the risk of heart dis­ease.

Even in the most lov­ing of fam­i­lies, fam­i­ly life can be chaot­ic. Try­ing to bal­ance home­work, meal­times, laun­dry, ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties for dif­fer­ent peo­ple with their own needs, de­sires and stress­es can be dif­fi­cult. That is why we some­times (or of­ten) do not re­act from a place of com­pas­sion and kind­ness with the peo­ple we love the most. By bring­ing mind­ful­ness in­to your fam­i­ly, every­one can learn the tools to help re­duce their stress and man­age their emo­tions, which will bring the fam­i­ly clos­er and mak­ing every­one feel more con­nect­ed.

It is said that age brings wis­dom and the mem­bers of Pauli­na De Leon’s fam­i­ly agree with that adage. De Leon, a Moru­ga res­i­dent, was born on June 14th 1924. Now at the age of 95, she has a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence and wis­dom. To­day, most mem­bers of her fam­i­ly go to her for ad­vice and a bel­ly full of laugh­ter. Al­though she has be­come vi­su­al­ly im­paired, De Leon is tru­ly young at heart, has a pow­er­ful­ly com­mand­ing voice, a good sense of hu­mour, is al­ways high in spir­its and has end­less sto­ries to tell.

Vicky Khan has been a hair­dress­er and make­up artist for 18 years in the Princes Town. Her pas­sion for the art stemmed from a very ear­ly age through ob­serv­ing her aunt who was al­so a hair­dress­er. Vicky Khan’s warm per­son­al­i­ty and ex­pe­ri­ence with all dif­fer­ent types of hair keep her cus­tomers loy­al to her. She be­lieves that a per­son’s hair can se­ri­ous­ly make them or break them.