An Introduction to Who We Are

When it comes to buying personal care products – you know, all the lovely things we use to clean ourselves, moisturize with, etc. – there are so many options available. But do you know how difficult it is to find products that don’t have at least one ingredient that is linked to some harmful health or environmental effect?

Have you ever picked up one of these products and tried to read the ingredient list, realizing that there are many ingredients that you either can’t pronounce or simply don’t really know what they are (or why they’re there)?

Here at pūr alternatives we noticed just that, and decided to get to the bottom of it. It turns out there are many products out there that are perfectly safe and still work beautifully. But for some reason they are still few and far between. There was no one-stop-shop for truly safe products! Until now.

Fed up with this situation, we decided to do something about it, and so pūr alternatives was born. A place where you don’t have to read the labels and understand what the contents are (but are highly encouraged to do so), where you don’t have to ask questions (but if you have any- please do!) and where, most importantly, a wide variety of truly safe products can all be found in one convenient location.
 
 

A Little Bit About the Founders and Owners

Christopher Galbraith

Originally from Saint John, NB Christopher worked for years in various customer service and retail jobs until he decided he’d had enough and swore to leave retail and never return. He moved to Halifax, NS and studied at Dalhousie University, burying himself in research papers and eventually earned a wonderfully satisfying career as a geologist travelling between job sites in Northern Canada and home in Halifax.

Satisfying as his career as a scientist was, when the world’s economic balloon burst in 2008 he found himself skilled in an industry that was forced into hibernation. Rather than hibernating with it, he helped Stephanie form pūr alternatives. Despite getting back into retail and despite the number of people who discouraged the venture from getting started, he has never been happier.

On most days, Chris can be found keeping things running and chatting with customers at our Halifax-based store.

Stephanie Kincade

A native of Saint John, NB, Stephanie has called Halifax home since 2003. She was mainly employed in the Theatre Industry in the years leading up to the conception of pūr alternatives; doing everything from Stage Management to Directing, Sound Design and Crew on Concerts to her position as Artistic Director of Taboo Theatre (a position she still holds today).

Unhappy about the quality of natural products available in the area, and after a lot of frustration sorting through hard to decipher ingredient lists, she came up with the idea of a place where picking out safe daily products didn’t have to be so difficult. It turns out, Christopher had the same idea! Together they worked full time for nearly a year on getting pūr alternatives up and running. Open since October 2009 despite a recession, opposition, and expecting their first child!

Most days she can be found working behind the scenes on any number of things, and soon will also be juggling motherhood into the mix.