Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Decavage

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?

I ‘grew up’ in my dad’s commercial printshop. He started his company in 1984, the year I was born, and the family was all in. I learned to screen print when I was 10 and continued honing my craft through high school and college. I have always felt a strong connection to small business and I love the hustle.

Since I was a kid, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur & that I would have a storefront. After college, and managing the family business for a few years, I was ready to start my own thing. I launched cinder + salt, an eco-friendly graphic tee line, to marry my love of style/fashion and my screen printing practice.

At cinder + salt we’re very focused on sustainability and what that means for the company holistically. It’s not just about using organic cotton fabrics or reclaim inks, it’s also thinking about efficiency, longevity and timelessness of our products. We aim to create apparel & goods that will last as long as our customers want to use them!

I often ask myself, “What more can I do?” And there’s always something else! We have over a dozen eco-initiatives that are now central to the cinder + salt business strategy. We host beach, street and trail clean-ups all year round; we have clean waste collection bins in our stores; we provide free reusable cotton totes with purchase & we host volunteer eco-retreats to help people really connect with nature. I believe in creating opportunities for people to partake in sustainability easily, and accessibly, because protecting our planet’s resources is a group effort.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

I’ve always said, “my comfort zone is getting out of my comfort zone” – I like a little bit of frenetic energy because it reminds me that I’m always learning & growing. That said, there have definitely been some obstacles on my small business journey.

In the first couple years it was always about money & having enough of it. Cash flow struggles are SO real. I’ve learned that as long as I keep an eye on things, it’ll balance out in the end. Finances don’t really stress me out the way they used to.

As we began to grow our team, the next hurdle was finding the right people. There were a dozen or so team members who just weren’t the right fit at the right time, and it’s particularly exhausting (for everyone) to invest time, energy and effort into something that won’t work. A few years back we implemented a 3 month probationary period for new hires to determine if “the role & the person are a good fit for each other.” If not, we don’t force it! We figure out where that person excels and we try to reposition them.

Around year 9 we had to update our internal systems; like… all of them. Every single software we use, and every procedure we had got a complete overhaul. It was so exhausting!! The mental energy to not only change how I work, but also making sure everyone else knew how to move forward & getting all our devices (computers, tablets, POS systems, phones) set up – it was a small nightmare that took about a year to smooth out. But it had to get done so we could continue to grow.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?

There’s two things I really excel at in life : Turning trash into art, and working under impossible deadlines.

I’m very passionate about the planet & I absolutely love being productive, so I make that work for me.

I make my living by illustrating plants, animals & random things, and then screen printing them on apparel, home decor and gifty items. But what I really do is hoard all the stuff we don’t use like packaging materials, fabric scraps, broken silk screens and literal bits of trash. Our printshop has an entire wall of collection bins for dozens of types of non-recyclable, clean waste.

In my free time, I convert that ‘stuff’ into art – whether its Trashion looks (fashion made from trash), or sculptures of Coral Reefs (it’s just a thing I do), I try not to waste anything.

My creative energy really flows when I have no time and no resources, hahaha! Maybe it’s because I was a fan of MacGuyver growing up but I really love the challenge of making something from nothing, really fast.

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?

I won’t fail myself.

When I’m having a rough moment I remind myself that all I have is me, and I need to find a way. There’s so much I want to do in life (professionally & personally) that I really don’t want to let myself down, or waste my own time. You have to be your own biggest cheerleader to make the dream a reality.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cinderandsalt.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cinderandsalt/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cinderandsalt/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvoFwMnB6UpBSqkYfZ7edZw