On Her Time is Pinch's ongoing editorial series celebrating women who lead with intention, clarity, and a deep respect for the lives they're building. This chapter features Sally Mueller, Co-Founder and CEO of Womaness, a modern women's wellness company dedicated to helping women navigate perimenopause, menopause, and healthy aging with confidence.
Sally's story is about what happens when a personal gap becomes a professional mission, and when a health diagnosis doesn't slow you down, it deepens your purpose.
She Grew Up Watching Women Be Seen
"The best brands don't simply sell something, they make people feel better about themselves."
Sally didn't arrive at entrepreneurship from a startup playbook. She arrived from a childhood spent watching her mother run Merle Norman cosmetic studios for over 45 years, watching her care for women, make them feel beautiful, and build a business rooted in genuine connection. Those early years planted something in her: the understanding that the most powerful brands aren't transactional. They're relational.
That instinct followed her into a 25-year career at Target, where Sally helped shepherd some of the most memorable retail collaborations in the company's history, from Isaac Mizrahi to Liberty of London, and more than 75 partners in between. She learned how to see cultural shifts before they arrived. She learned how to build things people didn't just want, but loved.
She thought she knew what it looked like to fill a need. Then menopause arrived, and she realized she'd never seen a gap quite like this one.
The Appointment That Changed Everything
"I couldn't believe I wasn't more informed and prepared. I was an educated woman, yet I didn't recognize the symptoms, and I certainly didn't know there were more than 30 of them."
Sally had been carrying a long, quiet list for months. Brain fog. Sleeplessness. Anxiety. Night sweats. Aching joints. She'd attributed it to stress, because what else would an accomplished, high-functioning woman attribute unexplained symptoms to?
Then came a thorough evaluation at Mayo Clinic. The doctor looked at her and said: everything you're experiencing is menopause.
She was stunned. Not just by the diagnosis, but by how unprepared she'd been for it. She was educated. She was informed. She'd spent decades in consumer industries studying what people needed. And yet she hadn't recognized the signs, hadn't known there were over 30 of them. She walked out of that appointment and started looking for products, for information, for anything designed for women like her.
What she found was almost nothing. The products felt outdated. The messaging was clinical or, worse, embarrassing. She walked out of the search thinking the same thing she'd walked out of the appointment thinking: there has to be a better way.
That moment became the spark for Womaness. Co-founded with Michelle Jacobs, the company was built to be the trusted destination Sally wished had existed, science-backed products, expert education, and a voice that was optimistic and real.
A Second Pivot, A Deeper Purpose
"No woman should have to navigate this stage of life feeling invisible or without options."
A few years after founding Womaness, Sally received a second diagnosis: breast cancer. As frightening as that experience was, it shifted something in how she thought about the work.
As a survivor, she learned that many breast cancer patients can't take hormone replacement therapy, leaving them with even fewer options and often feeling left out of the menopause conversation entirely. Suddenly, the gap Womaness was filling wasn't just personal. It was vast, and it was urgent.
It reinforced her commitment to non-hormonal, science-backed solutions that every woman, regardless of health history, could explore with her doctor. And it deepened her sense of responsibility. Womaness wasn't just a brand. It was advocacy.
The Work Is The Life
"Womaness doesn't feel like work to me. It feels like a community of friends with a shared mission to help women feel their best."
Running Womaness is not a Monday-through-Friday job. When you're building something born from personal experience, the line between work and life doesn't just blur, it dissolves. Every customer conversation is a reminder of why this exists. Every product decision carries the weight of a real woman's experience.
A typical week moves between leading her team, meeting with retail partners and investors, thinking through new product innovation, and, increasingly, making space for her own body. Over the past year, she's made a conscious commitment to Pilates, tennis, and movement. She feels stronger than she has in years. That's not incidental. That's intentional.
Self-Care as Maintenance
"Caring for myself isn't selfish, it's what allows me to show up as the best leader, wife, friend, and advocate I can be."
Sally doesn't use the word indulgence when she talks about self-care. She uses maintenance, the same logic we apply to our homes, our cars, anything we actually want to last.
She thinks about her future in concrete terms: hiking with her grandchildren someday, playing tennis for as long as she can, building businesses, making an impact. None of that happens by accident. It requires showing up for herself every day, in small ways that compound. Ironically, she probably takes better care of herself now than she did in her 30s and 40s, when she was focused entirely on taking care of everyone else.
That philosophy is woven into everything Womaness stands for. They're not selling youth. They're not selling fear. They're selling the belief that investing in yourself now is the most forward-thinking thing a woman in midlife can do.
Why Sally Embodies On Her Time
Sally didn't build Womaness because it was a good business opportunity. She built it because she needed it, and because she refused to believe that millions of other women should have to feel invisible during one of the most significant transitions of their lives. She turned a personal reckoning into a movement, and a diagnosis into deeper purpose.
Womaness was born from a moment in a doctor's office when everything finally had a name. Built, on her time.
Follow the Series
On Her Time celebrates women building lives and businesses rooted in clarity, courage, and sustainability. Stay tuned for our next feature.
And when you're ready to invest in your own maintenance, Pinch brings premium, at-home aesthetic care directly to you. Your space. Your schedule. Your standards.
Book your next appointment at bookpinch.com.