At 24, Carter became a homeowner and a startup founder. "How many people can say that?" she says with a smile from her perch at the back of the sailboat.
After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2016, she found and purchased a sailboat on Craigslist in four days. She wanted to feel close to nature, "in the middle of it all."
In November, Carter moved into a new sailboat (pictured) with her now-husband, Charlie. They met in the marina just a few months earlier and eloped.
Finding the right man was like finding her first boat, she says: "When you know, you know."
Carter declined to name the cost of her and Charlie's sailboat. In the Bay Area, boat owners pay between $250 and $1,111 a month to dock at a marina. Additional fees apply if the person wants to live aboard their vessel. Carter warns that the cost of upkeep can also be prohibitive.
Carter brags that the boat's wind turbine generates enough power to run the blender and charge her cell phone at the same time. The couple also has plans to install solar panels.
A few years ago, Carter became fed up with the lack of transparency and quality of ingredients in most beauty products. She decided she wouldn't put anything on her body that she wouldn't feel good about eating. That concept planted the seed for Salinity.
Salinity's serums, moisturizers, and mists contain botanicals and minerals sourced from land and sea. She harvests the sea salt, a natural exfoliator, from the Pacific herself.
Carter says while many skincare ingredients do come from the earth, the vast majority of products are pumped full of "chemically processed synthetic ingredients that are changed beyond the point of recognition. ... I am working to change this," she adds.
Salinity's products contain locally sourced ingredients that are never altered in a lab.
Then the workday can begin. Carter tackles her email inbox first. Her cell phone plan includes an astronomical 20 GB of data a month so she can use the internet whenever.
Her home serves as a constant source of inspiration. A homemade spice rack, made of glass tubes and corks, gives off a tantalizing scent that complements the salty sea air.
Everything in the sailboat has its rightful place. Carter says the couple has to be diligent about putting things where they belong after use, otherwise the boat gets messy fast.
Carter convinced her husband to store cooking ingredients in Mason jars because she liked their look and eco-friendliness, though glass and sailboats don't go together well.
Most days, Carter takes off mid-morning to work out of a small studio she rents in the Bay Area. There, she makes products by hand and packages them for shipment.
Carter can afford the workspace in part because she doesn't live in San Francisco, the most expensive rental market in the US, according to real estate site Zumper.
Source: Zumper