About
The Sterling Essentials Story
The story of Sterling Essentials starts with horses in the Pacific Northwest. When Teal's horse was injured one winter, we found ourselves worrying that the saddle and other leather tack would become moldy and mildew in our wet winter. We looked around for a leather care product that would do the trick, but everything we found contained irritating chemicals. Our horse had even more sensitive skin than people, and if the chemicals were irritating to us, they would certainly irritate our horse.
Frustrated with our inability to find any natural leather care products, we decided to make our own! We believe that effective, high quality leather care can be achieved without harsh and irritating chemicals. We wanted something that would protect our leather from the soggy and damp Pacific Northwest winter, while also nourishing the leather during the dry summers.
After months of experimentation we came up with a product that uses simple, natural ingredients, such as high grade beeswax, food grade natural oils, and top of the line therapeutic essential oils. Not only does Sterling Essentials leather care products protect your leather, but they smell good too!
We are excited to share our leather cleaner and conditioner with you, and we hope you will love them as much as we do.
- Teal and Matt

Teal and Ro

Meet Teal
Along with my husband, Matt, I founded Sterling Essentials in 2015. A quintessential start-up story, I spent nights and weekends building up my dream business while still working my Fortune 500 day job.
As an engineer and senior professional project manager with background in material science and energy, I managed complex multi-million dollar global projects for over a decade – meeting many fabulous people and learning a tremendous amount along the way. Finally after burning out at my high-stakes corporate job, I took the leap into entrepreneurship fulltime in 2017…and I’ve only looked to the beautiful future ever since.
In addition to being horse crazy for as long as I can remember, I love music, reading novels, baking bread, getting outside to nature whenever I can, and spending time with my beyond fabulous family.
Although of recent years, I’ve been that complete “adult ammy” hunter/jumper, many moons ago I also dabbled in saddle seat and western. Let me tell you, I think my trainer wore our her vocal chords trying to get me “off my pockets” and onto my thighs when I transitioned from saddle seat to the hunters. LOL! I just love that the learning never ends when you’re into horses, don’t you agree?
Teal and Rabs