She started a Canadian beauty brand from a women's shelter. Her memoir shows there's hope after domestic violence

Leifso founded her brand, Evio Beauty, which makes serums and undereye masks to soothe stressed skin, when she was 21 years old and living in a women’s shelter.

She devised the entire launch herself, teaching herself graphic design skills and hustling mocked-up samples to retailers, selling pieces of furniture to pay her way. It was pure chutzpah, peddling a product that did not yet exist.

Once she was ready to properly launch, Leifso held a splashy New York launch event. But she was living on a shoestring, staying in a hostel and toasting her big moment not with champagne but with milk she’d swiped from the airplane, the ticket having eaten up her entire food budget for the expedition.

Today, Evio has given back half a million dollars to shelters across North America.

Leifso’s book is a distillation of the lessons she learned along that rocky road. “Fearless Choices,” written with co-author Eliza Robertson, is part memoir, part business advice from a founder who rallied in the hardest moments and created something that changed her life.

The book chronicles her journey from Ontario farm country in Walkerton, via Edmonton, where her family moved when she was small, to Vancouver. She drove there alone as a precocious and driven 17-year-old, to work behind the scenes at a modelling agency. While living in the city, she met an older man who had “an abundance of wealth and a dark side to him,” she told the Star. 

At first, he love-bombed her with flattery, charm and promises. “How could a man this successful believe I was this smart and this capable?” Leifso said, describing the seduction and the spell he cast over her. When the facade slipped — he’d disappear on substance abuse binges and dangle unlikely explanations for it — he would return to entice her. “I craved that approval from him again,” she said.

Emotional manipulation escalated into coercive control and isolation from her support systems. Then, violent outbursts turned into physical blows. Stalking followed.

Usually, women don’t leave just once, Leifso said. Statistics show women leave an abusive relationship seven times on average before getting out for good, if they manage to do so.

When Leifso finally ended up in a shelter, all she could think was: “How did I let this happen to me?” She describes a cycle of compounding self-doubt and shame. Her inner monologue asked, “How could it happen to a smart woman?” and led to the devastating question, “Am I really smart?”

According to the Canadian Women’s Foundation, a staggering 44 per cent of women experience a form of psychological, physical or sexual intimate partner violence in their lifetime.

Leifso’s main motivation to write the book was to highlight how many women this happens to, and send them a message. “If you are in a dangerous situation, and you feel there is no way out, there is a way to find the capacity and courage to find the first step,” she said. “You always have a choice, even when it seems that you don’t.”

Leifso’s business story has also been filled with ups and downs, including an affiliation with a cannabis company that did not serve her vision well in the end. These lessons are woven into the book, along with her advice on how to deal with setbacks and keep driving forward.

“Beauty is a volatile industry. You need to be ready to pivot constantly,” said Leifso. “One week you are doing well, the next you are going bankrupt.” She explains how she navigated the all-important share of shelf space at major pharmacy retailers, and how she approached the direct-to-consumer shift that came with ubiquitous online shopping.

Bold action is her north star. “The truth is, you don’t have to have it all figured out — you just need to take action and trust that each choice brings you closer to where you want to be.”

Embracing forgiveness is one way to get closer to that place, she said. “If someone wronged you and you stay consumed by those feelings, they still have power over you, and that’s on you.”

Leifso could have chosen bitterness, but instead she forged a path that led to a multimillion-dollar company delivering salves to stressed out skin everywhere. “I wanted to show the way out. I wanted to show, with my experiences, what was positive and what was actionable,” she said. “I really feel like if I don’t find something good in it, I don’t know if I could go on.”