Rising Stars: Meet Iryna Pylypenko

Today we’d like to introduce you to Iryna Pylypenko.

Hi Iryna, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I started thinking about everything I had been through and how far I had come, and I realized something important: we should never diminish ourselves, our journeys, or our accomplishments — even if they may seem insignificant to someone else.

We live in a time when social media constantly shows us extraordinary success and an idealized version of what life is supposed to look like. And whether we realize it or not, it affects us. We start comparing. We start questioning whether we are doing enough. And eventually, we can begin to overlook everything we have already accomplished.

I see myself in that.

Of course, seeing other people succeed can be incredibly motivating. But we also have to remember that so much happens behind the scenes, and we rarely know the full story.

So, this is mine.

My name is Iryna, and I consider myself a very ordinary woman — although I suppose once you are in your thirties, it is finally time to stop calling yourself a girl.

I grew up in a small village in Ukraine, and as a child, I could never have imagined the life I have today.

Creativity and fashion were always a part of me. I was the kind of child who could never sit still. I danced, sang, wrote poetry, made clothes for my dolls and even for myself, and organized little fashion shows with my sister. I dreamed of being on television one day, which eventually led me to study journalism.

While at university, I explored different sides of the profession, including newspapers, radio, and television. But life has a funny way of changing the plans we make for ourselves. I soon discovered that working in a clothing store could actually pay more than writing news stories.

University ended, and adult life began.

I worked, built my career, and kept moving forward, but somewhere inside, I always wanted something more. Jobs changed, positions changed, even the cities I lived in changed — and throughout all of it, I was still trying to figure out where I truly belonged.

Then the pandemic happened, and I had to leave my job. What initially felt like another setback unexpectedly opened a new door. My sister and I started our own small business: an online shop creating and selling bouquets made from soap flowers. We were creating something beautiful together, learning as we went, and slowly growing our business.

Then the war in Ukraine changed everything.

I had to leave my home without knowing what came next. Would I be able to return soon? Or would I have to build an entirely new life somewhere else?

Eventually, that somewhere else became Canada.

Starting over was anything but easy. I arrived without strong English skills and without the qualifications or Canadian experience that would immediately open doors to the kind of career I wanted. But I was willing to begin again.

I enrolled in English classes and started learning how everything worked in my new country. Eventually, I realized that studying English in a classroom wasn’t enough — I needed to actually speak it in real life. So I found a job at a small grocery store near my home. After English classes, I would go there and work almost every day.

I wasn’t making much money, and it certainly wasn’t the career I had imagined for myself, but at that point, the job represented something more important: progress.

Around the same time, I started showing up more on Instagram. I had an audience of around 300 followers and absolutely no idea what I was doing. I posted all kinds of random videos, experimented, learned through trial and error — and somehow, I loved it.

As my English improved and I became more confident, I knew it was time to look for work that actually inspired me. I returned to retail, but this time it felt completely different: a bigger company, a different environment, and new opportunities.

I worked my way into a position I genuinely loved — Visual Merchandiser.

In a strange way, one of my childhood dreams had come full circle. The little girl who once loved dressing her dolls was now dressing mannequins for a living.

Working with fashion inspired me. I was constantly learning, developing my eye, and becoming more confident in myself. At the same time, my Instagram was growing with me. I started creating outfit transitions, styling videos, unboxings, and more intentional fashion and lifestyle content.

But the story wasn’t as effortless as it might have looked from the outside.

Adult life can take a lot out of you. I was trying to balance work, home, content creation, and the emotional weight of having a war continue in my home country. Eventually, the stress caught up with me.

I started experiencing burnout. I became inconsistent with my content and would sometimes disappear from social media altogether. My health began to suffer, I gained weight, and the more exhausted I became, the harder I pushed myself for not doing enough.

Working with a psychologist became an important turning point for me. It helped me understand what was happening beneath the surface. I was dealing with burnout, anxiety, prolonged stress, and what felt very much like a crisis of turning thirty.

One of the hardest things was admitting how lost I felt. I kept thinking, I’m already thirty. How much longer can I keep “finding myself”? Shouldn’t I already be somebody by now?

For a long time, I believed I was behind.

Eventually, though, I realized that I had to choose myself.

I left my job because I knew I had outgrown that chapter of my life. I felt ready for something more and wanted to see what I was capable of beyond the life I had become comfortable with.

But before building something new, I needed to recover.

That took much longer than I expected. For more than six months, I have been learning how to come back to myself and find that spark again. I have been learning to listen to myself and my body, to treat myself with more kindness, to prioritize myself without feeling guilty, and to understand what I genuinely want rather than what I think I should want.

It hasn’t been an easy process, but perhaps it has been one of the most valuable chapters of my life because it has shown me what actually matters to me.

I no longer care that I am in my thirties and still figuring things out. I no longer believe that there is a certain age by which we are supposed to have everything figured out. Not everyone gets to start from the same place, and some of us have to start over more than once.

I am grateful for every opportunity I have had and every lesson life has given me — including the difficult ones.

And today, there is one thing I know with certainty.

I don’t know exactly where life will take me next. I don’t know what opportunities will come, what country I may find myself in one day, or what my career will look like years from now.

But wherever life takes me, I know I want to keep creating.

I want to grow my platform, tell stories, share pieces of my life, connect with people, and continue discovering who I am through what I create.

After years of searching for myself, I think I finally understand that maybe finding yourself isn’t about arriving at one final destination.

For me, it is about having the courage to keep becoming.

And I know that creating and sharing that journey is where I belong.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There have been many challenges along the way, but without question, the hardest one has been living through war while being far away from the people I love.

My home village in Ukraine is located very close to the Russian border. My parents, my sister, other relatives, and some of my closest friends are still there. And the truth is, not everyone has the opportunity to leave and start over somewhere else, even when they are living under circumstances like these.

I remember going to work and trying to function normally while, inside, I was falling apart because I couldn’t reach my family. You are physically at work, doing what you are supposed to do, talking to people and going through the motions of an ordinary day, while your mind is thousands of miles away, wondering whether the people you love are safe.

It is a very difficult feeling to explain to someone who has never experienced it.

And then there is the guilt.

The guilt of being somewhere safe while the people you love are not can be incredibly difficult to carry. You know logically that being safe is not something you should feel guilty about, but emotionally, it is much more complicated than that.

Living through one war affecting your family is already devastating. Having two is something I never imagined I would experience.

My husband is Iranian, and his entire family lives in Iran. When the situation there escalated and there were periods when he couldn’t reach his family, sometimes for a very long time, it brought back that same fear and helplessness all over again — this time for both of us.

I wouldn’t wish that feeling on anyone.

And somehow, in the middle of all of this, you are still expected to pull yourself together and continue living your life.

For me, one of the biggest challenges has been reconciling that reality with being a content creator.

Consistency is incredibly important when you are trying to grow online. You are supposed to keep showing up, creating, posting, engaging, and sharing your life. But there have been many days when I received terrible news or was worried about my family, and opening Instagram and pretending that everything was fine felt almost impossible.

Sometimes it feels strange to return to social media and film another outfit, another beauty video, or another unboxing when you know what people you love — and millions of others — may be going through.

At the same time, creating content is something I genuinely want to pursue. I want to grow, improve, and build something meaningful through it. And consistency is part of that responsibility.

So I have had to learn that continuing to create does not mean that I don’t care.

That is something I wish more people understood about creators in general. When someone continues posting during a difficult time, it does not necessarily mean they are unaffected by what is happening around them. Sometimes they are simply trying to keep going. Sometimes creating is their job, sometimes it is their dream, and sometimes maintaining a small piece of normal life is what helps them cope with everything happening behind the screen.

There is always so much we don’t see.

So if I could ask for one thing, it would simply be a little more empathy. Behind every account is a real person with a life that continues long after they put their phone down.

And sometimes, pressing “post” is not a sign that everything is okay. It is simply a way of continuing to move forward.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
At this stage of my life, my main creative focus is my blog. I already see clearly what I want it to become, and I’m slowly building it in that direction.

I feel like I’ve grown beyond the stage when my content was mostly unboxings, outfit transitions and styling videos. I still love fashion and beauty, and they will always be part of what I create, but today I want my platform to be about something more. I want to share my life, my journey, and the person I am becoming along the way.

While recovering from burnout and prolonged stress, I discovered another area that genuinely fascinated me: more conscious, low-tox living. I want to be very clear that I’m not an expert. I’m still learning, researching, making mistakes and figuring out what works for me. And that is exactly what I want to share.

I’ve started paying more attention to the things I bring into my everyday life — from the food and products I choose to the materials I use in my kitchen and bathroom, my bedding, my clothes, and my home. I’m learning to choose more natural materials, simplify where I can, and become more intentional about the decisions I make.

But for me, this journey is actually about much more than replacing one product with another.

It is about finally choosing myself.

After years of stress, constantly pushing myself and feeling as though I needed to keep up with everyone else, these small changes have become another form of self-care. They represent learning to listen to myself, take care of myself and create a life that feels better for me — rather than simply looks good from the outside.

That is also the direction I want my blog to take. I don’t want to present myself as someone who has everything figured out. Quite the opposite. I want people to be able to watch the process as it happens.

I know I’m not the only person who has experienced burnout, questioned where they are in life, struggled with motivation, or felt like they needed to start over. If someone comes across my page and recognizes a part of themselves in my story, I want them to feel a little less alone. I want my platform to be a place where beautiful things can exist alongside honest conversations about the less beautiful parts of life.

I think that is also what I want to bring to my work as a creator: not perfection, but honesty, curiosity and evolution.

I have dreams and ideas for where I would love to take all of this in the future, but I’m learning not to rush every chapter of my life. Right now, I want to focus on growing my platform, creating content that genuinely feels like me, meeting inspiring people, working with brands that align with my values, and staying open to opportunities I may not even know exist yet.

What I’m most proud of is that I’m allowing myself to evolve. My content doesn’t look the same as it did a few years ago because I’m not the same person I was a few years ago — and I think that’s exactly how it should be.

Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
Without a doubt, my biggest source of support has been my husband. I honestly can’t imagine where I would be today — or what state of mind I would be in — without this incredible person by my side.

The fact that I am now living on another continent is largely because of him. When the war began, his priority was my safety, and his determination to make sure I was somewhere safe eventually brought us to Canada.

He supports me in almost everything I do and believes in me, sometimes even more than I believe in myself. He is truly my number one fan.

Even during my most difficult periods, when I was struggling with burnout and had very little motivation or energy left, he was the person who helped me get back on my feet and keep moving forward. Having someone beside you who continues to see your potential when you have temporarily lost sight of it yourself is something I will never take for granted.

I would also love to give credit to my mentor — and now my friend — Nadiia.

She believed in me and played an important role in helping me discover who I wanted to be as a creator. She gave me the push, knowledge, and motivation I needed to start taking my blog more seriously.

Before meeting Nadia, I had a very different perception of what it took to work with brands. Coming from Ukraine, I had the impression that you needed a large audience — often tens of thousands of followers — before brands would even notice you or consider working with you.

Nadia opened my eyes to a completely different side of the creator industry in Canada. She showed me that opportunities exist for smaller creators too, and that the value you bring isn’t determined by your follower count alone. The quality of your content, your creativity, your audience, your personal style, and your ability to tell a story can matter just as much.

That completely changed the way I looked at myself as a creator.

Today, even with a community of around 1,200 followers, I have the opportunity to receive collaboration offers and work with brands — something I once thought would only become possible much later in my journey.

And perhaps most importantly, both my husband and Nadia have taught me, in very different ways, the importance of having people around you who see something in you before you are fully able to see it in yourself.

I’m incredibly grateful for both of them, and I’m excited to see where this journey takes me next.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mirinafa/