About Alison
In 2015 I decided to leave my dream job in sustainable fashion at prAna, a leading yoga lifestyle brand in Southern California.
I spent 10 years there, first as an Assistant Designer, then literally a moment as an interim Designer, before I took a giant leap into the role of Product Development and Technical Design Manager overseeing a brand new team that I built one by one. My task? To build top quality sustainable product, introduce social and environmental standards to our supply chain and bring designs to market using the best in the business from around the world, with I team that I grew to respect like family.
This role would take me all over the world, from Hong Kong, to Vietnam and India. I met working mothers who brought their babies to work where they stayed in the nursury called a "crèche", had dinner with executives in high rise restaurants, spent time in Ashrams and visited the marble meditation center called Oroville in Pontecherry. But it was a visit with a farmer in Central California that reminded me that none of those things are possible without our health.
These farmers brought local Pediatricians to speak with fashion brands to tell it to us directly. Chemical pesticides were causing cancers and birth defects and directly impacting the community of children and young women's reproductive health. They didn't need studies, they saw it first hand.
The deeper I went into understanding chemical impacts and our responsibility as businesses, the more I realized my work launching programs like Fair Trade, GOTS and Bluesign in fashion categories meant nothing if people were still using toxins on their skin. I did some research and, sure enough, I found that the very chemicals we were banning from sustainable product standards - like Phthalates and Azo Dyes - were unregulated in the skincare industry.
So I took another giant leap...of faith this time. I launched Salud, found incredible sourcing partners, organic farms and best of all - people like you living a life with compassion, self awareness, generosity and finding our frequency families so we can all brighten the world together one bottle of Salud at a time.