What's In A Name?

One thing that customers and fans of the Sauce brand all want to know is: why “Sauce”? This is a brand for outdoor apparel, not a restaurant! So why the food-related brand name?

Once upon a ski race circa 2000 (the beginning to the age of the blog), Sauce founder Shayla Swanson was a racer training for a national event when she was approached by a web agency wanting to make a blog for her. They wanted to focus the blog on her skiing career and she was put under the immense pressure to create a brand name for herself and a catchy web domain, ultimately choosing “Shayla On Skis” or “SOS” for short.

At this same point in time, Shayla was sewing hats as a side gig and eventually her brand was being printed on the back of these hats for a little publicity.

As her career continued, Shayla's blog went a bit downhill. Her head was not in the blogging mindset and she wasn’t feeling the inspiration to continue. Meanwhile, her inspiration for creating headwear abounded! But a unique problem had arisen – there were too many other “SOS” brands and she didn’t want ShaylaOnSkis to get lost in the shuffle. While looking for a new perspective for her brand, something revealed itself.

The phonetic pronunciation of “SOS” sounds exactly like “sauce,” and an idea occurred to Shayla – what is a sauce? It’s the part of a dish that adds zest and flavor to the meal. It takes something bland and boring and creates a whole new taste, adding color and variety! Shayla thought that was definitely the unique perspective she was looking for, not to mention a pretty cool connection to her original SOS brand and applied it to her headwear.

SAUCE is an outdoor apparel brand that adds zest to your wardrobe, just like the edible kind adds zest to any dish you make. Shayla’s unique designs and bright colors are the perfect “hot toppings for cold weather,” and “enhance the flavor of your outdoor experience.”

With every great brand name does come with a few issues. With this revelation, Shayla accidentally created an alliteration she never wanted – Shayla Swanson, Sauce. Evidently, attempting to convey her name and business over the phone is quite the feat. There is also the reason for this written story, which is the confusion it elicits when a new customer doesn’t get it, or perhaps a vegetable vendor doesn’t do his research and emails to promote is peppers from India in the hopes of us selling them in our “restaurant.”

But for the most part, SAUCE is the perfect name for our spicy, colorful, and tasteful headwear, activewear, and every wear for everywhere.

It makes sense now, right?

Read more about how the whole business got started here!