By Samreen Maqsood

With fall blowing in and winter quickly approaching its tails, beauty and fashion trends are on the all-time rise. Being in Toronto has its advantages. As one of the largest cities in Canada, it’s the hub and buzz of everything. No one knows fashion better than the bustling sidewalks of Toronto.

Being located in the heart of downtown, Ryerson University attracts some of the country’s most talented and creative people. Beauty blogger and an aspiring entrepreneur Ridhisa “Ridi” Giri is one example of the diverse student talent.

Having just gotten into the beauty game and launching her own makeup account on Instagram, @ridimakeup, Ridhisa “Ridi” Giri is a second-year business and technology management student at Ryerson. Her makeup account has taken on a business twist, with her booking and completing looks for clients and launching her own beauty line, Ridi Beauty. While continuing school, her passion lies in beauty and in the near future, she hopes to make it a career and a lifestyle.

She had always loved makeup, ever since she was a little girl. Her early-on experience with acne is one of the biggest reasons she got into makeup. In Grade 11, Ridi started experimenting with creative makeup as she fell in love with seeing people radically transforming themselves.

“You can make yourself look so unique and I wanted to be able to do that,” said Giri.

Giri has a YouTube channel, but she struggles with posting consistently. She never really wanted to start a channel, but did so because people kept asking her how she did certain looks. She says so many beauty gurus on YouTube are missing certain techniques, so she thought to herself, “Let me teach people how to do not only these looks, but makeup in general.” 

Her biggest inspiration behind starting her own channel is beauty YouTuber Daisy Marquez.  “I was obsessed with her videos,” she said. But Thomas Halbert was who inspired her to start a beauty Instagram account.

“His makeup looks were crazy back in the day,” said Giri.

Giri explained that one of the most exciting things about being a beauty influencer is when people recreate her looks.

“I like to assume no one knows who I am, because I find it weird when someone does,” said Giri. “Another great thing was when people would send me messages like ‘Wow, I love your makeup,’ or ‘You really inspired me.’” 

“My favourite look that I’ve done was by far my craziest and took me the most time. It was my Travis Scott album inspired look,” she said. It took her five hours. 

With the passion of becoming a beauty blogger also comes the dream of opening your own beauty line, or becoming part of a makeup group. Giri used to always tell people she would never start her own beauty line. Things changed when she started talking to people about it. The more she did makeup, the more she realized how privileged she was as a lighter person of colour in finding makeup products that suit her skin tone. 

“Only mostly high-end products can offer a diverse makeup line and I wanted to produce a line that everyone would be able to use. I want people to feel inclusive,” she said. 

Below are some of the products from Giri’s makeup line, ranging from brow products, lip glosses, lashes, and more.