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Rissa Mananquil Trillo

Rissa Mananquil Trillo has been a model, a beauty columnist, and the founder of the breakthrough cosmetics brand Happy Skin, which she introduced in 2013 as “a skin-caring makeup solution [for] Filipinas.” When she exited the brand in 2021, Happy Skin had won over 40 awards and, most importantly to Mananquil Trillo, built the foundation for other local beauty brands in the Philippines.

Mananquil Trillo now serves as the first green beauty ambassador of beauty brand Dermtropics. The mother of two is also a UN Women Advocate and continues to be a mainstay in society events for brands such as Bulgari and Louis Vuitton.

Because styles come and go, she says that sustainability is what really matters in her wardrobe. “I used to buy a ton of fast fashion clothes from a ‘conscious’ collection, only for them to be left hanging in my closet with the tags still on. I realized that an ‘eco-friendly’ label does not mean it's okay to be consumed unlimitedly,” Mananquil Trillo says. “Now, I find it rewarding to be a

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Rissa Mananquil-Trillo’s Happy Skin story goes beyond succeeding in business

So we got a glimpse of your book and was surprised to see that it wasn’t all about your business. It also tackled beauty standards and one’s identity on social media. What made you decide to include them in the book?

Being in the business of beauty, it was inevitable to touch on important beauty conversations such as beauty standards, self-worth, and the pressure of social media. More than that, surviving in entrepreneurship requires not just business skills but also values you hold on to—a strong kind of beauty that embraces even the intangibles. In an era where personal and professional lines are blurred, principles will be tested, and the most important thing an entrepreneur can have is a strong sense of self.

You’ve been in the local beauty industry for a long time now, what were the biggest changes you’ve noticed?

I am proud to see that there is so much love for homegrown Filipino brands today. It’s become social currency to wear something from a local brand or from a local de

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Style, Success, and SM

As a model and beauty columnist “who has road-tested countless make-up brands,” it was always Rissa Mananquil Trillo’s dream “to create my own make-up line that would take good care of skin and wonderfully celebrate Filipina beauty.”

As a beauty columnist, she wanted to create products she could genuinely recommend to others, the kind that would allow her to be – “hands on, with creating, formulating, testing everything from the start.”

This dream became possible with Happy Skin, which is on its way to become a global Filipino brand—proudly homegrown with Filipino minds behind it and committed to offering world-class quality.

When it became time to retail the brand, Rissa remembers asking help from her Mom to connect her to Tessie Sy-Coson, and she was advised to write a letter. “That was in 2013, and I still keep the letter I wrote and the reply I got back,” she recalls.

Happy Skin’s first SM Store counter was significantly inside Megamall, a place where she says she “grew up”.

“I celebrated a lot of firsts at SM,” Rissa recalls. “Buying my f