SALTWASH
A LOCAL PRODUCT CREATED OUT OF NECESSITY
GOES WORLDWIDE
By Christine R. Gonzalez • Photography by Allison Potter
JAIME AND CAROL HUNTER didn’t set out to make a product that is now sold
internationally. They simply wanted to save time and money when creating their coast-al-
themed art.
“We’d go to High Point and other places where mansions were being taken apart to get
salvage wood,” Carol says. “Some of that salvage wood was expensive and we knew we
could not keep doing that, so we needed to figure this out.”
The figuring out process led to the invention of Saltwash, an additive made with sea salt
that makes new wood look weathered. It’s manufactured in their workshop in Wilming-ton,
and sold around the world.
“We were just trying to find the beach cottage look, but it wasn’t a ‘Let’s start a DIY paint
company’ project,” Carol says.
Carol and Jaime, a Wilmington native, own Saltwater Salvage Designs. They make art
with the beach cottage, weathered-wood look that is sold at Airlie Moon.
The couple experimented in their garage with ways to make new wood look weathered.
They knew they had found the right recipe when they took one of their boards to the
Wrightsville Beach Museum and laid it down by the time-worn porch steps. Their board
matched the real thing, and they knew they had found success.
Initially, the product was just intended for their own artwork. But when other people
began to ask about it, the idea to manufacture and market Saltwash was born.
“So many people at the furniture markets asked us where we got our old wood, which
were all new boards treated with Saltwash by then,” Carol says. “So, we decided to package
it and see what happens. We got the patent, the registered trademark, and set up a tiny
table with the labels taped on the cans at the Atlanta show. We got many orders from that.”
The company was founded in 2014. The product is sold in seafoam-green cans that
feature a shapely pin-up girl and the promise “You can use this product to create a vintage
look.”
“The branding has helped catch people’s eye,” Carol says. “Stores like it on the shelf
’cause it’s a pretty little package. She is our ambassador.”
The product can do more than make new wood look weathered.
“It’s a paint additive,” Carol says. “You can add Saltwash into any type of paint and
use it on any paintable surface to create a whole variety of effects, faux rust, faux cement,
verdigris, or metal.”
The Hunters were guest hosts on the Home Shopping Network in February.
“We are just this little rinky-dink workshop in Wilmington,” Carol says. “I don’t think
people know we’re here. But we have accounts all around the EU, Australia, Korea.”
When they started the company, Carol and Jaime got valuable help from the Small Business and Technology Development
Center at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.
“We are fortunate that here in Wilmington the SBTDC group is a huge help,” Carol says. “And the N.C. organization helped
with small trade development. It was a huge help as a small business to grow outside the U.S.”
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WBM november 2020