How Lithe Beauty Founder Linda Secondi is Building Beauty With Intention
From engineering innovative lashes to expanding into a full makeup line, the Toronto founder is shaping a brand that merges form, function and a growing focus on mental health.
Linda Secondi. Photo: Vai Yu Law.
When Linda Secondi was growing up, her parents discouraged her from wearing makeup. Her family, who are of Chinese descent but lived in Vietnam, moved to Canada during the Vietnam War, before Secondi was born in Toronto. “My mom had a really big impact on makeup with me, because she was absolutely against makeup growing up even though I was very drawn to it as a kid,” Secondi explains. “I had to hide a lot of makeup in my backpack and I would use my lunch money to secretly buy makeup.”
While her mother instilled an eye for lighter makeup looks, her father, an engineer, gave Secondi an appreciation for functionality from a young age. Early in her life, Secondi would experiment with mixing different things to create a makeup look her mom wouldn’t be able to detect.
These makeup experiments would end up being the backbone of Lithe, Secondi’s beauty company that sells natural, everyday makeup.
In 2017, Secondi and her husband Matt were feeling burnt out from their high-powered careers in fashion and finance, respectively. At the same time, the two were getting ready for their wedding and Secondi was on the hunt for false lashes that were both “natural but also glamorous.” This proved to be harder than she expected: anything she could get her hands on were too dramatic for her or didn’t fit her Asian eyes.
Secondi started experimenting with different synthetic fibres to find ones that would mimic the softness of materials like Siberian Mink, which was common for lashes. Linda said that she noticed a disconnect early on because mink lashes were often marketed as cruelty-free, which didn’t fully align with her views. Synthetic fibres allowed Lithe to be more transparent and more precise. They were easier to engineer, more consistent, more hygienic, and ultimately created a softer, more natural-looking lash. It wasn’t just about values, it simply made for a better product.
While developing the product, Secondi also tapped her dad’s engineering know-how to design unique packaging—the lashes came in a doughnut shape which preserved the curl of the lashes. “I enjoyed the process so much and it brought me closer to my dad, and that was the beginning of Lithe,” she says.
The resulting lashes were natural-looking, reusable dozens of times and packaged in a beautiful box that was a delight to unwrap. The brand won the 2018 Allure Best of Beauty award just six months after launch. In 2024, the brand pivoted to a full-fledged beauty brand with a line of products like an angled eyeliner pencil with an angled brush and smudging tool, lipsticks, brow gels and blushes.
Now, with a successful brand off the ground, Secondi is turning her attention to another passion of hers: mental health advocacy.
“My mother and father both witnessed and endured so much trauma at a young age and not believing in mental health and therapy meant that the trauma had a very strong effect on my childhood,” Secondi says, adding that she left home at 17 and didn’t speak to them for years. Now, Secondi wants to turn Lithe’s brand into a vehicle for good—particularily for starting up conversations around mental health in the Asian community. “I’m passionate about beauty, but I feel like my drive to give back, help others and understand myself better is also very strong,” she says.
While the mental health initiative Secondi is working on is still in progress, the beauty founder says that giving back to her community—especially when it comes to mental health support, which she herself has lived experience with—is a part of her purpose in life. “For brand founders, the brand really embodies you,” she says. And while Lithe is a representation of Secondi’s upbringing, inspired by her mom’s preference for light makeup and her father’s practicality baked in, she says that being able to include Asian mental health as a pillar and cause for Lithe is the dream. The goal is to eventually build a program with resources for children and access to funding for therapy.
“My passion really lies in therapy, because without therapy, I don't think I'd be able to have this conversation right now and process my feelings properly,” Secondi says. “It’s so important for children to understand the environment they’re growing up in, especially if they’re immersed in two different cultures.”