Living the Dream

For us, Salon Alchemy is our dream job:

• Doing what we love and excel at

  Ruth has been working in IT for over 16 years, where she has gained an excellent reputation, but fancied a new challenge, and had always been interested in the beauty industry, so it made a lot of sense to use her IT skills to help people working in hair and beauty. Ruth is one of those rare people who can be incredibly productive at something that really interests her, and is happiest when sitting at her laptop churning out Java code, typing away like a lunatic. Salon Alchemy has given her the opportunity to get her teeth into a project where she has total and absolute control over every aspect of the system, and has been able to let her creativity really fly using cutting-edge technology.

  Both Ruth and Sonia are passionate about the beauty industry, and Ruth is delighted to be able to use her IT skills to help people in the industry. We're especially proud that Salon Alchemy is affordable enough for people just starting out to have a professionally designed website - and, ultimately, powerful salon software.

• Being who we really want to be

  Being transgendered, Ruth previously had to endure going to work in "boy mode" for most of her entire career. As our work on Salon Alchemy is predominantly done from home, Ruth was finally able to be herself when working on Salon Alchemy.

• Being with the people we love

  Working from home on Salon Alchemy, Ruth is able to spend all day with her beloved wife Sonia, and our "zoo" of dogs, cats and rodents, instead of spending most of the day away in an office. We've also made some wonderful friends in the beauty industry, and the flexibility of being able to work the hours that suit us means that we're much more able to help out with things like modelling for training courses, again helping out people who are just starting out in the industry.

• Being at one with the planet

  As most of our work on Salon Alchemy is done from home, that means a lot less commuting, and consequently less CO₂ emissions, as well as saving time and money. We're already very keen on saving energy (such as Ruth's obsession for low energy lighting), and helping the planet in other ways, such as eating organic whenever possible. We specifically chose a server with a lower energy processor to minimise the carbon emissions of actually running and hosting Salon Alchemy and our clients' websites, as well as saving us money on our hosting costs (where higher energy usage means higher data centre fees). We live in a beautiful part of the country, right on the edge of Shrewsbury, and, by working from home, finally have the chance to make the most of living here.