At a startup like Glossier, a surprise department-wide meeting means one of two things: layoffs or treats. So when the tech department of the beauty phenomenon — well, what was then its tech department — was asked to gather for a visit from founder and CEO Emily Weiss on a late spring day in 2019, a buzz ran through the blush-pink second-floor office. The company had just launched a redesigned online cart and checkout, and some 30 members of the tech team hung around, wondering: Were they gettin

If you choose to mask up — and health experts say you should — expect some mixed signals, or no signals at all. Katie Kirby, 35, a delivery person for DoorDash in Pittsburgh, said face coverings also act as a dating filter; she doesn’t want to be out with anybody who won’t wear one. But masks increase her anxiety. “I rely on facial expressions so when things are impeded it makes it harder for me to gauge things,” Ms. Kirby said. “And besides worrying that somebody might not be the best person,

Beards can prevent the N95 mask from sealing correctly, but “having a beard is unlikely to make a big difference” in the protection offered by cloth masks and other face coverings, Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease specialist and a clinical professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health, wrote in an email. (Cloth masks, he said, are also worn more to protect other people than you.) Nor is Dr. Swartzberg aware of any greater risk of coronavirus tra

In April, when reality set in for the advertising executive Joseph Gordon — that his family’s spring and summer vacation plans were canceled, that his two kids’ camps would likely be canceled, too — he cast about for an escape. After a lot of research, Mr. Gordon, 40, of downtown Manhattan, located two 19-foot Yamaha jet boats (which cost $30,000 and more) for sale at Patsy’s Bay Marina in Stony Point, N.Y. He asked to reserve the blue one. When he called a few hours later to switch to the red

“Fewer ingredients is better than more,” said Dr. S. Tyler Hollmig, the director of dermatologic surgery at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas, who likes drugstore brands like Eucerin and CeraVe. The moisturizer does double duty here. Besides, well, moisturizing the skin, it can protect it from mask friction, à la a runner’s chafing cream. Another reason for using fewer products: The mask will intensify product delivery to your skin. (You’ve seen this side effect of occlusion in

In early March, Jeff Haynie, the CEO of Austin-based software company Pinpoint, was gearing up to find new office space. Pinpoint’s $25,000-per-month lease with WeWork for 1,800 square feet would be up in August, and it was time to move on. He was thinking he’d need maybe 10,000 square feet for his growing company, which makes software for programmers. Then the pandemic hit, and along with it, the enforced work-from-home orders, and Haynie be

But what had more important ramifications for the company’s future was Santos’ singular focus on press, with nearly all profits in the early days going to marketing. That’s not unusual in a startup, but at Homepolish it happened, ex-employees say, at the expense of building out the company’s infrastructure. It’s unclear how much of Santos’ focus on PR — and his success getting interviews — can be attributed to his then-boyfriend (now-husband) Ross Matsubara, vice president and style director of

Lauren Citro, 32, has been trying to conceive for nearly six years. She’s received fertility treatments at four clinics in three states. In her effort to exhaust all options, she’s sampled almost every intervention recommended: immunology testing, assisted hatching, supplements, acupuncture, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, testicular sperm extraction and the list goes on. She trusted her doctors—and didn’t want to drive herself crazy Googling things when fertility treatment is already a

What’s to blame for the mass barrier malfunction? Too many creams, serums and other hope in a jar. “It’s largely a product of our own obsession with squeaky clean and using product upon product upon product,” said Whitney Bowe, a dermatologist in New York. Combine product overload with environmental assaults, and you have a recipe for skin barrier disaster. Here’s how to avoid that — or to repair the damage. What the Acid Mantle Is, and Why You Absolutely Must Protect It The acid mantle is t