SallyeAnder

In 1982, Gary Austin was a chef faced with a problem. His first child, Aaron, was allergic to grocery store soap, so he used his culinary skills to produce a simple, hand-made Castile soap. Castile soap is based on olive oil, not animal fats. Aaron’s skin healed and Gary and his wife Karen realized that there was a large community of people with sensitive skin and other conditions who were in need of Gary’s soap. The Austin family founded the SallyeAnder company and committed themselves to making ethical, effective, and sensitive-skin friendly products. Their handmade personal care solutions can be used by people of all ages and are 100% hypoallergenic.

But then who was SallyeAnder? For ten year old Gary, she was the embodiment of can-do rural American spirit. â€Å"She was our family’s next door neighbor, and kind of like an adopted great aunt for me. SallyeAnder worked her family farm in New York’s wild Adirondack Mountains. She was practical, intentional, no-nonsense. She grew hops and potatoes and raised cattle. She was a bartender and a bouncer, she baked bread, she fed and cared for her parents, two sisters and a brother from her garden and farm. Through her we discovered the natural world.” SallyeAnder was never taken in by things that were fake or fancy for no reason. SallyeAnder understood hard work, honesty and a practical kind of love. All those years later, Gary and his family realized that she was the inspiration and guiding spirit for their new company’s values.

Sallie Austin Gonzales, Gary and Karen’s daughter, is now leading SallyeAnder to new levels of success. Naturally, Sallie’s earliest memories were of soap and the scent of essential oils. One of four children, Sallie was raised in a household that was not only home to a thriving young family but also to a bustling handmade soap workshop. While she was growing up she was learning at first hand the intricate business from the inside. After Sallie purchased the company from her parents, she set up a new factory in the up-and-coming Hudson River Valley town of Beacon, NY. Home is a farmhouse on four acres with an organic rose garden that they harvest for their rose soap. Across the street is a goat farm that supplies the milk for their goat milk soaps. And down at the factory you can still find Gary creating innovative products and her mom leading the sales front.