At 17, Haley found herself battling severe health issues, including disordered eating and emotional instability. A pivotal moment came in a chiropractor’s office after she watched a documentary on the dangers of psychiatric drugs. That moment unraveled everything she thought she knew about healthcare—and began a ten-year journey into holistic living and natural medicine.
By 19, she was giving nutrition consults, digging deep into ancestral wellness, and using food to repair her relationship with her body. Long before tallow became trendy, she was scraping fat off cooked ground beef and rubbing it into her skin. Her family thought it was strange. But to Haley, it made sense. Her intuition was waking up.
After getting married and having two children, Haley thought life was settling down. But in the midst of the COVID era, she lost her remote job. Out of that loss came a nudge—what if she made her own tallow balms? As the world stood still, from a tiny mountain cabin in Furano, Colorado—rocking her baby in a chair with no cell service—she began building the bones of her business. With each small batch product she sent out, the response was immediate. People loved it and the brand quickly grew through word of mouth.
Just four months into building Sunbird, her marriage ended. With a one- and three-year-old in the back seat, she packed up her life and drove away from everything she had known. That same Saturday, she had launched her new inventory and as she drove across Colorado, her phone kept buzzing. Order after order came through. It was confirmation. She was on the right path.
Now rooted in Wyoming, near her family’s ranch where she spent childhood summers on the back of a horse, Haley is closer than ever to the land that shaped her. Those wide-open spaces—the same ones she once explored on horseback—are now home again. Each October, she returns to the ranch to harvest rosehips with her children, nieces, and nephews. It’s become a family tradition. The sage she uses is wild and untouched. Her tallow is rendered by hand from suet sourced just miles away from regenerative ranches where the soil is rich and the cattle are clean.
Favorites like Butterly Tallow, Genesis Balm, and Garden Reverie tell her story—products that are deeply personal, made with reverence for the home and the body. With new soaps and hydrosols coming this summer, Haley is just getting started.
She runs Sunbird from her home with her kids by her side. Two close friends—both expecting babies—now work alongside her. Sunbird Collective is a story of resilience. Of coming home. Of letting God use what was broken to build something beautiful. Visit their website at sunbird-collective.com.
