The typical celebrity post-workout selfie involves zero flyaways, miraculously unmelted mascara, and cute athleisure wear. Our attempts at recreating that image for the 'gram involve a beet-red face, frazzled hair, and an old T-shirt — all while we're still trying to catch our breath. But leave it to Carrie Underwood to add a little #reality to the conversation, with a relatable makeup-free face.

The singer took to Instagram over the weekend to post a sweaty selfie after a workout session, writing, "When your face matches your shirt = you had a good workout! Unless your shirt is blue...then maybe you should be concerned! (sorry, total mom joke) I took these pics after my gym sesh yesterday (today I'm cleaning this mess of a house, which I totally consider to be my Saturday workout)."

She continued, "This is one of my favorite new outfits...I especially love the top because this is basically my motto these days!" Underwood said of her shirt, which read, "I'm Doing This For Me." "Anyway, just wanted to share! Sending out lots of weekend ❤️ to you all! May we all get lots of stuff done and make a little time for ourselves in there, too!"

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A post shared by Carrie Underwood (@carrieunderwood) on Mar 30, 2019 at 1:18pm PDT

The country-music star has been all about keeping it real on social media lately: Last month, she opened up about the difficulties of reclaiming your body after giving birth. "As I was working out today, I realized that for the past 11(ish) months, my body has not belonged to me," she wrote. "I promise to stop analyzing every angle and every curve and every pound and every meal."

This fresh-faced selfie also comes just a few short months after Underwood was criticized by trolls for going to her son's soccer game with a full face of makeup. This makeup-free snap is the best clapback — intentional or not.

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If there was ever a clothing item that required serious research, no question, it'd be bras. Any woman who's spent frustrating hours roaming the lingerie section knows this to be true. But because bra shopping causes so much unnecessary trauma, women often avoid the topic, period. That is, until now. With so many lingerie brands finally breaking the Victoria's Secret mold, it's time to start talking about bras.

To get the ball rolling, we asked women from across Refinery29 to tell you what their go-to comfortable bras were. From trusted brands like Aerie and Cosabella to under-the-radar recommendations from Fruity Booty and Pansy, R29ers know how to find a bra. So no matter your cup size, your preferred bra style or your budget, there's an expert review in the mix ahead that will solve your bra shopping woes forever.

Read up on which comfortable bras the women of Refinery29 love in the slideshow ahead.

At Refinery29, we’re here to help you navigate this overwhelming world of stuff. All of our market picks are independently selected and curated by the editorial team. If you buy something we link to on our site, Refinery29 may earn commission.

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Olivier Rousteing and Beyoncé are continuing their fashion love affair. Because, hey, when it works, it works. This time last year, Beyoncé wore Balmain for her historic Coachella performance — and afterward sold a version of her sweatshirt to benefit the United Negro College Fund. On Saturday, the dynamic duo stroke gold again at the NAACP Image Awards.

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A post shared by Beyoncé (@beyonce) on Mar 30, 2019 at 10:53pm PDT

The music superstar, 37, accepted the NAACP Image Award for Entertainer for the Year wearing a white spring 2019 Balmain couture coat which she belted like a dress. She completed the architectural look with a large hat and Lorraine Schwartz drop earrings. Her ensemble earned a shoutout from her husband, Jay Z, who took home the NAACP President's Award. “I’d like to dedicate this award to the beautiful woman in my life. Just because of the white suit,” the rapper said.

Actor Omari Hardwick was quite taken with Beyoncé in this coat-dress too, so much so that he drew criticism from the Bey Hive when he double-kissed the queen a little too close for fans' liking. But Blue Ivy's mom wasn't the only one in attendance wearing Balmain with a structural twist. Grown-ish star Yara Shahidi attended the award show in Los Angeles wearing a fall 2019 Balmain look of her own.

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@balmain butterfly 🦋

A post shared by Yara (يارا‎) Shahidi (@yarashahidi) on Mar 30, 2019 at 6:40pm PDT

Shahidi, 19, donned a black sequin Balmain minidress featuring Rousteing's signature statement shoulders and a giant ruffle down the middle, which she paired with black Brian Atwood pumps. Later in the evening, she removed the ruffle detailing to wear the black dress on its own. While the actress was nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series for her leading role in Grown-ish, she lost out to her TV mom Tracee Ellis Ross. Regardless, alongside Beyoncé, Shahidi still won one of the best looks of the night.

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Slowly but surely, pastels are starting to feel more seasonally appropriate. Even if you're layering a lavender short-sleeve shirt under a sweater and a black puffer coat to walk outside, there's something cheerful about adding those touches of soft, spring-y shades into a still-winter wardrobe. Of course, the simplest and cheapest, most non-committal way to start easing into pastels while Mother Nature is still catching up is to paint them on your nails.

If your collection of pastels is looking a little sad and crusty at the moment — with a few glass bottles of sheer pink that may be more than two years old — we have your guide to the current crème de la crème of pastel polish, as determined by the pros. From frosty Chanel blue to lilac mauve, scroll through to find the prettiest pastel polishes to add to your stash. Consider it the smartest form of pre-spring retail therapy.

At Refinery29, we’re here to help you navigate this overwhelming world of stuff. All of our market picks are independently selected and curated by the editorial team. If you buy something we link to on our site, Refinery29 may earn commission.

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Joe Biden’s presumptive presidential campaign is already facing its first crisis. Former congressional aide Amy Lappos told the Hartford Courant on Monday that Biden touched her inappropriately, including rubbing noses with her, at a political fundraiser in 2009. The allegations follow an essay for The Cut by former Nevada Democratic legislator Lucy Flores in which she said the former vice president behaved inappropriately toward her at a campaign event in 2014.

"It wasn’t sexual, but he did grab me by the head," Lappos said. "He put his hand around my neck and pulled me in to rub noses with me. When he was pulling me in, I thought he was going to kiss me on the mouth."

The allegations echo Flores' experience, which she described in her essay, published Friday. "I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified," Flores wrote. "I thought to myself, I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice president of the United States smelling my hair? He proceeded to plant a big, slow kiss on the back of my head."

Flores said that while she’s not suggesting the encounter qualified as sexual harassment or as a criminal act, it was still out of line for the vice president to touch her, a relative stranger, in such an intimate way while in a professional setting.

In a statement responding to Flores' essay on Sunday, Biden said that he didn’t believe he had acted inappropriately, but that he will listen to women’s experiences. "In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support, and comfort," he said. "And not once — never — did I believe I acted inappropriately. If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully. But it was never my intention." His team has not addressed Lappos' allegations.

No one has been exactly shocked at the charges against Biden. In fact, it has been somewhat of an open secret that good, ol' "Uncle Joe" has behaved creepily throughout the years — from whispering into women's and girls’ ears to kissing them in a similar manner to the way Flores said he kissed her. His camp alleges that some of the photos of him with women have been taken out of context — a point that was supported by Stephanie Carter, the wife of former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter. In a Medium essay published Sunday, Carter wrote that a photo of Biden putting his hands on her shoulders was a moment between close friends, and that it has been misinterpreted. Flores responded to this by saying that unlike Carter, she didn't have an existing relationship with Biden when he allegedly invaded her personal space.

Several Democratic presidential candidates have said they believe Flores. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Biden “needs to give an answer” about the incident, while Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said: “Lucy Flores felt demeaned, and that is never okay. If Vice President Biden becomes a candidate, this is a topic he’ll have to engage on further.” Julián Castro said that the American people must decide whether the allegations should disqualify Biden, while Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said it’s crucial to take these types of allegations seriously. Sen. Bernie Sanders said that he has "no reason not to believe Flores," who is a supporter of his, and that the incident speaks to "the need to fundamentally change the culture of this country." He did, however, add that he's "not sure that one incident alone disqualifies anybody."

Both women said that their experiences with Biden felt like an unwelcome invasion of their personal space, one that should not be acceptable. "The transgressions that society deems minor (or doesn’t even see as transgressions) often feel considerable to the person on the receiving end," Flores wrote in her essay. "That imbalance of power and attention is the whole point — and the whole problem."

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Sandya Menon is the author of three books. Her debut novel, When Dimple Met Rishi , about a first generation Indian-American teenager who might just be falling for the guy her parents chose for her, appeared on the New York Times best-seller list and launched a series of interconnected rom-coms. As part of Refinery29’s YA Month, Menon reflects on starting a universe telling the stories of two Indian-American teenagers, which resonated with readers. As one Goodreads reviewer wrote, “My Indian heart is happy.”

I wrote When Dimple Met Rishi in fall 2015 fully expecting it to be a one-off. It felt like this incredibly rare opportunity, to have a major publisher interested in a book about two Indian-American teens. And not just any book, a romantic comedy set in a world that was as bright and sunny and happy and funny as I wanted to make it. As someone who’d spent the entirety of the nineties gorging on Meg Ryan/Julia Roberts/Hugh Grant movies, it felt like a dream come true.

Not surprisingly, the story poured out of me. It was as if my body had been waiting, poised at the keyboard, for someone to just ask me to tell this specific story. I picture the Sandhya of 2015 as one of those wind-up dolls, unmoving until the story — and the ensuing encouragement from Simon & Schuster — came along and wound me up. If that sounds creepy, forgive me; I’m trying to make a point.

It was thrilling! It was exhilarating! It was a roller coaster ride from the first minute until the last. I got the first draft done very fast, and before I knew it, the book had come out and hit the New York Times best-seller list. I was getting lovely emails from readers. It was the dream. It was what I’d always wanted. And it was also kind of sad, because I knew my time with these characters — the first book I’d ever written with two main characters of my ethnicity — and in this world was over. It was time to move on to something new.

I still remember my editor asking me, out of the blue, if I’d consider writing any more books in the Dimple universe. I blinked. I couldn’t believe she had doubts about whether I’d want to or not! Yes, I remember saying, definitely, let me get off the phone so I can begin working on it right now. Well, she gently pointed out, there is the matter of contracts and things. Pish posh, said I, where should I sign?

I was that excited. And then I sat down at my laptop and…froze. It hit me, for the first time, that people now had expectations for the series. And not only that, I felt like people looked to me to represent all Indian-Americans everywhere. There are so few Indian-American authors writing realistic fiction that there’s this enormous pressure to represent every single Indian-American experience in one book — which is, of course, impossible. The emails that hurt the most are the ones that begin, “I’m Indian-American, and I would never do what Dimple/Rishi/their parents did.” When you write for teens, there’s that added responsibility and pressure to do it right, to not cause harm, to make them proud.

I wanted to sink into that universe again. I wanted to do the best I could by Sweetie and Ashish, the main characters of There’s Something About Sweetie, and my readers. I wanted to enjoy myself. And I was beginning to think those three things might be mutually exclusive.

But then, thinking back to my experience writing When Dimple Met Rishi, out May 14, I realized something: All that truly mattered was that I dug deep (where all creativity and memories are stored; right in the solar plexus) and spoke to experiences that were true for me. It was impossible to tell everybody’s story. It’s maddening that marginalized creators often feel like we have to, because there are so few of us. But I think we also deserve to give ourselves a break and realize the only story we can tell is our own.

Once I gave myself permission to do that, it was sunshine and rainbows and multi-colored parrots again (sorry, inside joke with Ashish and Sweetie). I realized slipping back into a much-loved universe was like slipping on my favorite pair of writing pants: soft, warm, and comfortable for an anxiously bubbling stomach.

As of this writing, release day for There’s Something about Sweetie is about two and a half months away. Although my anxiety does spike sometimes — did I represent everything well? Will readers connect with my main characters? Will people say I let them down? — I continue to remind myself that I told the story from my solar plexus, that I pulled it deep from within the core of me, and really, that’s all an author can hope to do.

So now I sit here in my office, gazing at the cover for my third book on my wall, head spinning with the realization that this is my life. And what a wonderful, bizarre, thrilling one it is.

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In the four years since I became a mother, I’ve had about six different working situations. First, there was the fact I had no job when my daughter, Lucy, was born. During my pregnancy, I had been working as an hourly contractor for a big company. The department head said they would be happy to let me come back to my position after I took an (unpaid) leave, but, due to budget constrictions, they would have to cut my rate by 30 percent. Then, there was the traditional corporate job I applied for when Lucy was seven months old. That winter, as she and I traded illnesses, I realized that the lack of flexibility the company offered meant I simply couldn’t perform to their standards. I had to quit. Since then, I've had a variety of short-term consulting contracts, which didn’t offer benefits, but did offer flexibility.

Today, I’m still figuring things out — and I now know it will always be a juggling act. Sure, now my daughter doesn’t get sick as often due to daycare germs, but there are random days off from school. For example, we live in New Jersey, where schools are closed for a full week in November (nope, not even around Thanksgiving). I want a job where I can give my all — but I also need to work for a company that understands regularly working until 8 p.m. every evening just isn’t feasible.

Of course, this is a problem facing scores of parents who are struggling to manage their families and their work. And while some have found flexible schedules that allow them appropriate compensation and advancement, others have experienced stalled careers, inflexible managers, and a precarious balancing act that force them to weigh family against job advancement.

“When I was on maternity leave, I made the case for working from home two days a week,” says Caroline, a thirty-something account director for a marketing and publicity firm who does not want her full name used. “But what I found, in reality, was that I was iced out. My daughter was in daycare, so if anything, I had more hours on my work-from-home days to work, since I didn’t commute. But I wouldn’t get invited to meetings, or I would call in and would be spoken over in conversations.” Caroline says that even when she made the decision to head back to the office on a five-day schedule, she felt unfairly maligned for the flexible arrangement she had previously made. “I wouldn’t be invited to client dinners or drinks, since the assumption was that I needed to be home. The reality was that I could have gone. It was as if I was being punished for having dared ask for flexibility.” Caroline ended up leaving the firm and finding a new company that was a better match.

In reality, I found I was iced out. I wouldn’t get invited to meetings, or I would call in and would be spoken over in conversations.

Part of the reason flexibility can be such a minefield is that what a company promises regarding flexibility may not reflect the actual workplace culture. One Harvard Business Review analysis found that even companies that offer flexible schedules may have a bias when it comes to those schedules actually being implemented. This “fake flex” culture — a company that offers unlimited vacation but discourages employees from using it, for example — can be especially insidious for working parents.

“One thing I always advise people to do during a job interview is ask how many people don’t take time off,” says Katharine Zaleski, cofounder of Power to Fly, a platform that connects Fortune 500 companies and startups to female and minority jobseekers. “That puts the company on the spot, and you can tell pretty quickly whether flexibility is in name only.”

Larger companies often offer “on-ramps” for parents coming back from maternity leave, with a structure in place to help employees navigate flexible schedules. For example, Vicki, 37, an attorney in the Northeast, worked for a law firm that offered associates the option to downshift their work to a certain percentage. Vicki chose 80 percent, which kept her on a promotion and pro-rated bonus track. “I really liked that there was a system in place, and I talked about the logistics a lot with my mentor and other people who were on a flexible schedule,” says Vicki. While 80 percent didn’t necessarily mean shorter hours — she still regularly worked from 9 to 7 — it did allow her turn down work and travel, citing 80 percent as the reasoning.

At the end of a year, though, Vicki shifted back to 100 percent. “I was realistically doing 100 percent of my job, but in the beginning, the 80 percent gave me more mental flexibility than anything.” Working fewer hours did have an impact on her compensation, which was down about $60,000 from her 100-percent schedule. She was also nervous that if she kept that schedule, she might be overlooked for promotion opportunities. “It’s just a fact in the legal field that people who are billing the most hours are going to move faster on the promotion track,” she says.

Vicki says men took advantage of the percentage structure as well, and she’s glad that there was a system in place. In fact, the firm’s reputation as one that was flexible and fair to working parents partially drew her to the job, even though she was years away from having a child when she first started working.

It’s just a fact in the legal field that people who are billing the most hours are going to move faster on the promotion track.

This can be a smart strategy, says Lisa Skeete Tatum, founder and CEO of Landit, a talent and career coaching tool for businesses and individuals. “Research the policies a company already has in place to know if flexible schedules are a core value — or if you will you be a trailblazer.” If you are going to be a trailblazer, be sure to make the case of how a flexible arrangement will benefit the company as well as yourself.

“Explain that when you work from home, you’ll actually be online an hour earlier since you won’t be commuting,” explains Zaleski. It’s also important to show that you can be flexible for the company as well. “Maybe flexibility means a lower hour week during downtime, but they can depend on you to crank up your hours when you’re working on a client deadline.”

But it’s equally important to assess your own wants and needs. Whether it’s needing the flexibility to pick up your child by 5:30 p.m. or wanting the space to take a sick day with your feverish four-year-old without panicking, being clear with yourself on why you want flexibility and how the flexible time will affect your work is key, says Colleen Curtis, head of marketing and community at The Mom Project, a talent platform focused on connecting parents to work opportunities. “Take some time to sit down and get clear on your own personal priorities and let that guide your renewed career focus. Establishing what type of role and structure really works for you and your family will help you drive conversations around it with clear intent and purpose.”

That’s what Eileen, a 32-year-old training manager at a New York City consulting firm, did as she struggled with pumping and nursing while returning to work. “I was trying to pump, which took forever. Nursing was much faster than pumping. With my manager's approval, I decided to work a shortened day, which meant I would do one pump session and then go home to be with my baby.” While she would log back on in the afternoon, this arrangement meant that Eileen had to shuffle her work responsibilities — which she knows is a luxury not everyone can have. “At that point, I’d been at the company for five years. We were also shifting our team and had an opening, which we could fill with a person who could take on the travel assignments that had previously been mine.” While her compensation didn’t suffer — during a post-maternity leave period where she was taking off on Wednesdays as well as working reduced office hours, she used PTO hours rather than officially cut back her hours and thereby lowering her salary — she does have mixed feelings about her new work normal. “I'm sad not to run as many in-person programs because I do love them, but that was very much my choice to shift my responsibilities to topics that are more flexible.”

I'm sad not to run as many in-person programs because I do love them, but that was very much my choice to shift my responsibilities to topics that are more flexible.

While juggling work and motherhood can be stressful, those who’ve successfully lobbied for flexible schedules have found that they allow them to succeed at work — and feel less stressed when they’re at home. So how can you make the case for it — without docking your pay?

“Flexibility doesn’t equal not getting the job done,” notes Tatum. “I personally find that those of us that have personal priorities actually get more things done because we are highly focused, prioritize well out of necessity, and are committed to delivering the highest value priorities.” Knowing what you bring to the table — and how much you accomplish, regardless of the hours worked — can help you set up a system that’s fair to you and your employer. Talking with other parents (dads, too) and asking how they’ve done it can also be key, says Vicki, the attorney.

Finally, know that the key to flexible work is remaining, well, flexible. There will always be emergencies at work. There will always be outbreaks of hand, foot, mouth at daycare. And there will always be times you feel overwhelmed. “Although it’s challenging — and the guilt may always be there — you can be present for your family and still crush it as work,” says Tatum. “My tip is to schedule yourself first, then your key family and personal events, and work will fill in everything else. It’s a more intentional and fulfilling way to manage all aspects of our lives.”

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Twenty years ago, young adult literature occupied a few shelves in the children's section of a bookstore. A few Hunger Games and Twilights later, the genre has exploded into pop-cultural prominence. Although these books focus on teenage protagonists, the genre's appeal has no age restrictions. According to Publisher's Weekly, adults comprise over half of YA's readership. They pre-order books with fervor; they have YA book fan clubs.

Adults are drawn to YA books for different reasons. Some young millennials, like 24-year-old Samantha Tan, find that YA protagonists best speak to the liminal space between life stages she finds herself in. "I find refuge in these characters who are technically younger than me. I relate to the experience of being in between that space of being a kid and being a real adult," Tan told Refinery29. Others, like YA librarian Ally Watkins, simply love the books' prose style."There's this levity to YA. Even if they deal with tough topics, they have a humor. It’s a particular brand of sass that I just adore," Watkins said. Many more are drawn to YA's sheer number of diverse stories.

If you've already been converted to the church of YA, then you probably know your favorite genres and authors. For newcomers, we called upon the true experts — the youth librarians of the New York Public Library, which serves over 17 million patrons a year — to pick out some gateway YA books. Read these, and you, too, will understand why YA is for everyone.

Refinery29 is proud to partner with Penguin Teen on YA Month.

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A year and a half ahead of elections, we’ve come to expect our presidential candidates to — at this point — have a fairly robust platform regarding jobs, healthcare, and foreign policies. But…the gender wage gap? Not so much.

This is true even though the gender wage gap has an outsized impact on our nation’s economy. According to data from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, closing the gender gap would “cut poverty among working women and their families by more than half and add $513 billion to the national economy.” But sidestepping this systemic problem is no longer possible: four major presidential candidates have placed issues impacting the gender wage gap front and center, from paid family leave and universal daycare to boosting teacher pay and raising the minimum wage to $15/hour. “Hear me when I say this,” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand tweeted in late March. ”Paid leave, equal pay, and affordable daycare are not just ‘women’s issues.’ These are economic issues — ones that will determine whether or not our country succeeds.”

That we are finally tying the gender wage gap to the economy as a whole is monumental. And if you’re inclined to write off these ideas as individual policy proposals that are too weighed down by the nitty gritty to get people excited, you’re missing the bigger picture. Because what these candidates propose really amounts to a vision — and it’s a vision that zeroes in on one of the largest obstacles preventing working women’s full equality: motherhood.

While the wage gap has begun to narrow, especially for single, white, professional women in their early 20s, that near equity is short-lived. As women start to have children in their early 30s, the gap grows. Working mothers earn 75% of what their male counterparts make. Sure, you might want to reduce the cause of this pervasive gap to individual choice (women prioritize family over career, work fewer hours, seek out less competitive, high-paying industries, etc), but then how do you explain the 6% “fatherhood bonus” men receive when they become dads?

What these presidential candidates propose really amounts to a vision — and it’s a vision that zeroes in on one of the largest obstacles preventing working women’s full equality: motherhood.

It’s difficult to unravel all the reasons why working mothers face fewer job options and a widening wage gap, but it is both cultural and systemic: Among heterosexual couples, women typically take on the unpaid burden of managing the household while working full-time jobs: 271 minutes a day to a man’s 137.

Child care in the U.S. is prohibitively expensive, and couples will earmark women’s salaries to cover those costs. After all, the line of thinking goes, women typically earn less than men, so their careers are more expendable, making it more likely that the mother will quit working if the cost of child care is too high. In some states, families are spending more than 18% of their income for center-based child care, with some programs costing more than state college tuition (something Elizabeth Warren wants to change).

Our lack of national paid family leave is yet another reason mothers face an impenetrable wage gap. Right now only 12% of women in the U.S. have access to paid maternity leave through work, and just four states offer government-sponsored paid family leave policies. Those without access to such benefits leave the workforce at a greater rate. Additional government protections — an increased national minimum wage and legislation that bans unfair or discriminatory scheduling practices for hourly workers — could also have a huge impact on closing the gap, and helping women with the fewest resources and the most in need.

But government-mandated paid leave and universal daycare is only a piece of a larger puzzle. A 24/7 work cycle and bosses who favor workers who put in long hours and get plenty of facetime does not accommodate working mothers. And stereotypes that mothers are less committed and less efficient are rampant despite the fact that there’s plenty of research that suggests otherwise.

Though it is illegal to discriminate against pregnant workers and mothers, it’s still a huge problem in the U.S. More than 3,000 complaints were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 2017. This discrimination also results in women being put on a “mommy track” when they do return to work, which could help to explain not only the growing wage gap but why there are only 24 female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

Of course, avoiding marriage and skipping out on having babies isn’t a realistic solution to the wage gap. And in reality, most families don’t have a choice for one parent to stay home and watch the kids — 40% of families rely on the wife to take on a sole or primary breadwinning role.

That’s why this Equal Pay Day, Refinery29 isn’t suggesting you lean in. We’re not putting the onus on you to ask for more and give you false hope that individual actions could miraculously solve a problem that research suggests could take more than 130 years to fix. Instead, we’re taking a deeper look at working mothers with a series of stories on how parenthood impacts a person’s career and their earning potential.

Ludmila Leiva explores the unexpected obstacles facing women who have to job-hunt while pregnant.

Liz Tracy discusses the emotional labor of trying to track down affordable childcare.

Anna Davies does a deep dive into the pros and cons of a flexible work schedule for working moms.

And we talked to six women who are reinventing corporate culture by building businesses that are supportive of mothers.

This is an issue that impacts women at every level, in every industry, regardless of their race and sexual orientation. It’s complicated and it’s shitty, but important people are finally talking about it. Maybe this is the progress we need so we don’t have to wait another 100 years to see the wage gap become another piece of history.

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Teenage girls are impossible for adults to understand. At least, that’s what pop culture would have you believe. The entire movie Eighth Grade hinged on the premise that Elsie Fisher’s Kayla was all but inscrutable to her dad. But Sarah Dessen has always had a grasp on teenage girls.

All of Dessen’s books — there are 13, with a 14th arriving in May — are tender, loving portraits of girls in crisis. Dessen’s books usually follow a teenager just as she is forced to confront her full adolescence.

One of her most beloved books, This Lullaby, follows a girl named Remy as she prepares to go to college; in her latest, The Rest of the Story, Saylor is sent to reconnect with her dead mother’s family in North Carolina for the first time since childhood. Dessen’s books also have everything you need to understand the basic structure of teen girlhood: strained romantic relationships, tedious after school jobs, anxious parents, even more anxious teens, and the occasional aloft cup of Diet Coke.

Readers have responded to Dessen’s work with gusto. Her first two novels, That Summer(1996) and Someone Like You, were adapted into the teen movie How to Deal starring Mandy Moore. Four of her follow-ups appear on NPR’s list of the 100 best-ever teen novels. There is a Twitter account solely dedicated to quotes from Dessen’s books. Reddit is riddled with requests from readers seeking books similar to Dessen’s — turns out, understanding teen girlhood is a marketable skill.

When Dessen started publishing books in 1996, the world looked slightly different. “Young Adult” wasn’t yet considered a real genre, despite authors like Judy Blume, Laurie Halse Anderson, and Ann M. Martin’s vast teenage-themed canon. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the book credited for the YA and children’s publishing boom, wouldn’t be out for another year. Twilight had yet to sink its teeth into a generation of young women. Now, as Dessen prepares to debut her 14th book, she has a vast community of both YA readers and writers.

In advance of The Rest of the Story, Refinery29 spoke to Dessen about young women, falling in love on the page, and what exactly is happening in the widening world of YA.

Refinery29: Your books are not directly rooted in time or place and are relatively free of cultural touchstones. What do you mean when you call them “forever books?”

Sarah Dessen: “[T]hey could also be Anywhere, USA. In a lot of ways. Or anywhere in the world. When I first started writing them, I'm thinking, Well, no one in another country is going to be reading my books. Now I get emails from girls who are in the Philippines, and they're like, 'This is just like my school. This is just like my friends.' There's something very universal about the high school experience, when you take away all the cultural stuff and the slang. When you take away the setting and focus on what you're going through at that time, I think we all have more in common than we don't.

“It took me a long time to come around to texting. I always wanted a book to be forever. So I didn't put a lot of pop culture references or slang. I didn't want them to be dated at all. But there are certain things you can't ignore. I don't think you can write about teenagers without texting [anymore]. It would be like you're writing about people on the moon! You're just making stuff up! I think it's making peace with that and figuring out the best way to do it.”

The Rest of the Story does deal with addiction, which is something you've dealt with before, like in your book Lock and Key. Did you handle it differently this time around?

“You know, I was just reading that John Grisham gets his inspiration from the obituaries. And I was like, 'Oh! Stealing my thing!' I read the obituaries every day. I was really intrigued by the number of younger people that started showing up in the obituaries about five, six years ago. I feel like the world is okay, or at least, things are as they should be, if you read the obituaries and it's all elderly people who lived wonderful lives. But when you see a really young person on the obituary page, it's so jarring. When I was writing Lock and Key, I wasn't dealing with the death. I was just dealing with the abandonment. So The Rest of the Story was just the next step of that story and [its] also where our society has gone. We're in this epidemic right now. And a lot of kids are dealing with it. I think we're going to see more books covering this now, not less.”

In your books, a lot of the romances always revolve around words and wordplay. Even in The Rest of the Story, Roo [the love interest] has his five sentence descriptions.

“For me, it was never the captain of the football team, or the soccer team, or whatever. It was like that quirky guy who never had gas money and was funny. Who you see in class and makes you laugh. As a writer, when you're writing two people who are crushing on each other, it's just fun! I'm coming up on my 19th year wedding anniversary. So it's fun! It's like I get to fall in love on the page with someone I invented. And it's okay with my husband.”

Do you feel like the love interests have changed as you've grown as a writer? Is Roo different from Dexter from This Lullaby?

“Dexter was sort of my gold standard. I like a boy [who is] unique — the 'you’re nuts, but I think you're awesome!' kind of thing. I wrote him [because it was] what I wanted a boy to say to me! But I’m growing up, so I am impressed even more so these days with a boy who is self-sufficient, working hard, and looking to the future. When I was in high school, I didn't care about that. But as an adult, that's appealing to me now.”

When you sit down to write, do you feel like you're writing for young writers? Or do you feel like you're just writing?

“Well, I'm selfish — I’m writing for myself. I'm just trying to keep myself entertained. But in the editing process, you definitely bring the reader front and center when you're writing for teens. Like, I don't have a lot of sex in my book. But if I do, it's there for a purpose. That's the line that I walk in terms of writing for teens. If I'm writing a draft, I'm just writing the story I want to write, because I know I have a good editor who will help me hone in so that it's market appropriate.”

Yes, as a young reader, I always wanted more kissing.

“I get it from both sides! People say, 'You should have more sex. Your books don't have enough sex.' And I'm like, 'You know what? Go write your own book, if you want lots of sex.' But then, there are people that yell at me for having too much sex. You really can't win. Before I wrote The Moon and More, I went on Twitter, and people were saying, 'Sarah Dessen's books are so formulaic, they're all the same, she needs to do something different.' So I did, and then everyone was like, 'It's not the same!' That's the last time [I listened]. You're never going to please everybody else, so you might as well try to please yourself on the page.

“ There's plenty of sex in YA out there for people. I understand the argument. People are like, 'Teenagers are having more sex.' But you know, not every teenager is the same. So let's just all add to the canon. Let's all add to what's out there. The more stories, the better, because everybody needs a story they can relate to, and the more stories we have, the more chances we have to achieve that. I'm all for it! Let's just lift each other up! Let's just all write what we want to write.”

How do you feel like YA has changed since you started writing?

“[I]t’s so different. There was no Harry Potter. There was no Hunger Games. Or Twilight! I've been along for the ride during all of that. When I sold my first book in ‘96, and I said, 'Oh, it's young adult,’ people would say, ‘Does it have pictures? Did you draw?' People just didn't know! When I would look for my book in the bookstore, it was like Goodnight Moon, my book, and Strawberry Shortcake.

“Now, YA is just this force to be reckoned with. There didn't used to be a YA section when I was growing up, and now there's a 'Paranormal YA romance' section. It's gone from nothing to being uber specific. I’m really grateful that teens have kind of found their own space in the library, their own space in the book store, because I think that's what it should have had all along.”

Where do you hope YA goes in the next five to 10 years?

“I would hope to see it just become a stronger and stronger genre. I think it's already happening — Jenny Han’s movie [ To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before] was huge for YA. It's the new Sixteen Candles, new Breakfast Club. And adults! So many adults went crazy for that movie. I think the greatest thing happening in YA right now is diversity. There are kids out there right now that haven't found the book that's made them feel less alone in the world, and someone is writing that book. We just need to get that book out where that kid can get their hands on it.”

Interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Refinery29 is proud to partner with Penguin Teen on YA Month.

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The first quarter of 2019 has been impressive for women-founded companies. Glossier (founded by Emily Weiss) and Rent The Runway (founded by Jennifer Fleiss and Jennifer Hyman) both announced their unicorn status (VC-speak for companies with over a $1-billion-dollar valuation). And there has been a flurry of good news about impressive funding rounds for Ellevest ($33 million), Landit ($13 million), Billie ($25 million), ThirdLove ($55 million), and Fairygodboss ($10 million) — just to name a few.

While women-founded businesses still struggle to get a fair piece of the venture-capital pie (after all, in this same quarter yet another scooter company raised $30 million — as if we need more electric scooters), that's slowly changing and momentum is building in an exciting way. It's thrilling to see more women-led business, in part because many of these female entrepreneurs (who are frequently also mothers) are working hard to make sure they're building a new type of business that's not only disrupting industries, but also rewriting the corporate rulebook on how to treat employees.

As part of our Equal Pay Day coverage, we spoke to six female founders, who run businesses of various sizes, to see how their own experiences as working mothers has influenced the policies they put into place for their employees. As more women move into leadership roles and start their own companies, they have a chance to build corporate culture from the ground up, creating HR policies that more inclusive for everyone — and that can have a huge impact on how working mothers thrive and perhaps even one day help us close the wage gap.

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When she got fired, Emily Singer, 29, didn’t know she was pregnant.

At the time, Singer was working as a reporter in New York City and fell victim to a massive layoff after her company was sold. Four days after being let go, she took a pregnancy test — and it came back positive.

“We were so excited about getting pregnant that I didn’t really think about my job situation for a few days,” says Singer, though the reality of her circumstances eventually set in. “The focus initially was on my health and making sure the pregnancy was viable." From there, the couple worked through their finances and realized they would be able to survive on a single income until the baby came. Still, Singer started reaching out to potential employers right away.

“It felt weird to go on interviews knowing I was pregnant,” Singer tells Refinery29. She adds that, due to a miscarriage scare, she decided against mentioning her pregnancy to prospective employers until things were more stable. “When I eventually got an offer, I had just hit 12 weeks and told my employer that I was pregnant,” she says. “They were totally accepting and happy for me.”

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have such a seamless transition. “I know a lot of women have bosses who are not as understanding,” Singer says. Sometimes, women lose their jobs while they are expecting, and beyond the initial shock of being let go, this can lead to an onerous situation: Looking for a job while pregnant.

Indeed, for many women* professionals, pregnancy is a fraught topic. Because of persistent gender biases and a working culture that routinely disadvantages women, juggling the desire to start a family with the pursuit of professional growth often becomes a double bind, one that manifests in insidious ways. While the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 is supposed to protect women from discrimination "on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions,” in practice, these legalities are not always enough.

Lori Mihalich-Levin, JD , has dedicated her career to empowering new working parents. She is the founder of Mindful Return, a community that helps new parents navigate the workplace and the author of Back to Work After Baby: How to Plan and Navigate a Mindful Return from Maternity Leave. “There’s any number of ways that employers can discriminate against pregnant women and new parents — even if they’re intending to be kind about it,” Mihalich-Levin tells Refinery29.

Mihalich-Levin admits that job hunting can be a challenge, particularly when it comes to choosing whether to disclose a pregnancy. "It’s a personal decision. There’s no law that says you must, and there are, of course, laws that say that an employer can’t ask,” she says, however, this doesn’t necessarily mean that pregnant jobseekers are immune to discrimination.

“Upon getting a job offer, a woman I know asked about parental leave policies, and the company rescinded the offer,” Mihalich-Levin says, adding that she believes the offer was rescinded solely because of the questions she asked since she never actually disclosed she was pregnant. “It’s disappointing because you don’t always have recourse as it’s hard to prove discrimination.”

There’s no law that says you must disclose your pregnancy, and there are, of course, laws that say that an employer can’t ask.

Miguel A. Suro, an attorney in Miami, FL, says the best course of action in these situations is to contact an employment lawyer. He adds that many lawyers will work on contingency, meaning fees are only paid if the case is successful. Still, Suro admits that discrimination law can be incredibly complex and difficult to navigate, especially because each state has its own laws in addition to federal law.

Vanessa Gonzalez experienced this legal gray area first hand after she was forced out of her job as a project manager at an advertising agency while on maternity leave in 2013. Gonzalez took a leave of absence from her job, covered under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), in May with a return date at the end of September. A week before her leave ended, Gonzalez’s manager informed her that her position was being relocated from Los Angeles, CA to the company’s Dallas, TX headquarters and that she was no longer needed. “I was angry and upset but mostly scared,” Gonzalez told Refinery29. “I was with the organization for six years and felt betrayed. I had a three-month-old and was out of a job.”

Gonzalez immediately began searching for legal information online and eventually contacted a lawyer, but her case wasn’t clear cut. Her employer had fewer than 50 employees, so her job wasn’t protected under the FMLA. It was further complicated by the employer being based in Texas.

I was angry and upset but mostly scared. I was with the organization for six years and felt betrayed. I had a three-month-old and was out of a job.

The lawyer Gonzalez spoke with said she could possibly prove it was discrimination, but she also was very open about her high fees. She recommended Gonzalez appeal to her boss on a personal level to see if she could get a better severance package. After talking with her previous employer, Gonzalez was eventually granted two weeks severance and her benefits were extended for an additional month. She felt disheartened by the situation but decided not to take legal action. “I was up against a wall with no choice or resources. I should’ve pushed further to fight it.”

The complicated nature of job hunting while pregnant or soon after giving birth can be disheartening, Mihalich-Levin admits, but it also offers an opportunity to reconsider priorities, such as prioritizing companies that are more family friendly. And, while challenges with workplace parental protections vary greatly depending on the industry, Mihalich-Levin believes things are changing.“I’ve heard more and more stories of women landing fantastic jobs when they’re six or eight months pregnant,” Mihalich-Levin says. “We can continue pushing that needle by daring to walk into a job interview six or eight months pregnant.”

But, of course, landing the job isn’t the end of the battle. Mihalich-Levin has written extensively about the motherhood penalty, and the other systematic disadvantages facing working mothers related to compensation and perceived competence in the professional world. Shifting this deeply-rooted status quo requires employers to begin normalizing, de-gendering, and “de-parenting” workplace flexibility, Mihalich-Levin says, adding that when employers start to invest in new parents for the long haul, the corporate world begins to look very different. “It will look like a place where you can show up as yourself, do your job, and be recognized — not be fearful and try to hide,” she says.

Despite her challenges, Gonzalez used the terrible experience to make a career pivot. After freelancing for three years, she went on to pursue a Master’s of Communication at USC and graduated in December 2018. Her son is now five years old.

Looking back, Gonzalez admits she would have done a lot of things differently. “While pregnant, I spent so much of my time educating myself on caring for a newborn, yet no one ever spoke to me about maternal rights,” Gonzalez says, adding that she wishes she’d had more resources and education. “I was unprepared and never want to be put in that situation again — being a new mother was hard enough!”

*Though we use the word ‘women’ in this piece, we acknowledge that these challenges also extend for trans and gender nonconforming people who do not identify as female.

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In the past month, I’ve spent close to 60 hours trying to secure child care for my two-year-old son. This is not the kind of job I ever wanted. It’s a high-stakes, unpaid position that often leaves me quite literally with a bellyache. But as the keeper of the family calendar and bank account and the mother who works from home, this task inevitably falls on me.

I would generally describe my partner as supportive, but he has done very little to help with this process, balking the one time I asked him to call to schedule a daycare visit (I’ve booked at least ten to date). Granted, he works full-time for UPS, and his schedule isn’t as flexible. But our situation is pretty common among families in the U.S.

According to a new report by the Center for American Progress (CAP), half of all Americans have trouble finding affordable, available, and quality care for their preschool-aged kids. In families who can’t find care, men’s employment is unaffected, but women leave the workforce at a 12 percent increase above their better set-up peers. The study shows that, like me, these women are eager to work more and advance in their careers. Not surprisingly, those most affected are low-income women of color. (You can pretty much drag that last sentence and apply it to every instance of inequity in this essay.)

“When there is an issue finding care, it’s the mothers who are making sacrifices,” says Leila Schochet, the report’s author and policy analyst for Early Childhood Policy at CAP. Even if families can afford child care, they may not be able to find it because half of the country lives in a child care desert, where supply is not meeting demand.

I wasn’t prepared for how complicated it would be — and how emotionally fraught. In one very significant way, my partner and I have been pretty lucky in the child care department. We were living in Boston when our son was born, and after working for many years in grant-writing, I decided to work from home as a freelance writer and watch my infant son until we got to the top of the year-long waitlist for subsidized daycare. We learned about the program from family members and found out that we qualified after some easy Googling and a few phone calls. The daycare voucher, provided by the Child Care and Development Block Grant, covered two-thirds of the $1,500 a month costs. Requirements for this program vary from state to state, and so it’s not always easy to qualify. Only 15 percent of eligible families actually take advantage of this federal program. The other underutilized child care program for families who meet the poverty guidelines is Head Start, which provides high quality, free care, and long term benefits.

The six months my son was in daycare was great for my productivity, but we needed more help, so we moved in with my parents in Washington, D.C., this past fall. My partner quickly got a different full-time job at UPS, where he makes a living wage. My parents helped out by watching my son several hours a day, allowing me to work nearly full-time.

We knew this was a temporary set-up, as my mom and dad planned to spend winters in the South, and so I had already made arrangements for my son to attend a YMCA daycare with a January start date. The program costs about $15,600 a year, more than the $10,000 annual average for center-based care. We couldn’t afford it, but I figured it might be worth the huge sacrifice if I could work more hours. Except, the open spot at the YMCA never materialized, and as a result, since my parents left, I’ve barely had time to work. Our savings have dwindled to zero and my partner’s paycheck is barely enough to cover our expenses. This wasn’t unheard of when I was childless, but I was not prepared for the shame and fear I feel struggling financially as a parent.

While we were languishing on the YMCA waiting list, it became clear that I would have to figure out an alternative plan. And so began the massive, time-consuming search for child care. Each tour played out much the same way: My fun-loving child gleefully beelined for the toys. I would become giddy at the prospect of having a chunk of uninterrupted work time. And then reality would set in — the tours usually wrap with the bad news: it’s either out of our price range or there’s yet another year-long waitlist.

The immense emotional labor of finding help has taken a toll on me. There’s a lot of pressure to find the right someone to raise your child in your absence, and there’s a shocking lack of resources to help parents find quality care. I was pretty clueless about the all-around crappy options available. My partner has remarked on the institutional feel of full-time daycare centers when calling them kiddie rehabs. Half-day preschools are a more affordable option, but they are often full-up (plus, who only works three hours a day?). The quality of home daycares really depends on the owner, co-op preschools put parents to work by requiring them to volunteer, and we don’t make enough money to afford a nanny. Even so, I have to acknowledge how fortunate I am to be able to even have a choice between these different options, because hourly workers with irregular schedules or parents who work nights find securing child care an even more impossible task.

Each tour played out much the same way: My fun-loving child gleefully beelined for the toys. I would become giddy at the prospect of having a chunk of uninterrupted work time. And then reality would set in.

To add to the confusion and stress, it takes a ton of research just to figure out what’s available, affordable, and high-quality. Care.com, a popular subscription-based website that connects parents with caretakers and home-based child care centers, was the subject of a recent Wall Street Journal investigation. Reporters found the site doesn’t do background checks or even verify the credentials of listed caretakers. Rover, the site where you can find a dog-walker, does a better job at screening its contractors. Unlicensed home daycares were being listed as licensed on Care.com, and there have been horrific tales of neglect and molestation and more than one instance of a child dying while under the supervision of a caretaker found on the site.

It’s a helpless feeling not knowing exactly how your child is being treated while you’re away at work. Once, my partner and I hid in the car to keep an eye on a testy teacher who complained that my son cried too much when they made him walk to the park. We weren’t thrilled with her lack of sensitivity to the fact that he had just taken his first steps a few months prior, but we knew that her job was hard. We also knew the employees at the daycare were underpaid because a different teacher also worked weekends at a grocery store to help support her family.

“A large single indicator for high-quality child care is wages for early child care educators,” Schochet says. It is an industry that largely hires women of color and underpays them. “They are earning poverty-level wages in some cases. When early childhood educators are so underpaid and facing the stressors of poverty and not being able to make ends meet for their own families, it undermines their ability to provide quality care for young children.”

Almost every aspect of child care is the responsibility and domain of women. The perception is that it’s the woman’s job to devote all of her time to her child’s care, even when she’s not at home with the kid. Many of my mom friends have told me that all of their incomes go to cover child care costs. While men still make more than women, 42 percent of mothers are the sole or primary breadwinners. “Families are increasingly relying on mothers’ incomes to make ends meet,” Schochet says. “So when mothers are unable to work or have to make career sacrifices because of problems with child care, that has real consequences for their family’s economic security. That means more children growing up in homes where families are struggling to make ends meet. That can have long term implications to their well-being.”

It’s a helpless feeling not knowing exactly how your child is being treated while you’re away at work.

Reframing the issue of child care is key. “It’s critical that we see child care as an economic issue. It’s not just a women’s issue or a niche special interest issue,” she says. When women don't work, they don't spend money. It costs the U.S. $57 billion a year in lost earnings, productivity, and revenue when women like me are un- or underemployed, and U.S. businesses lose about $12.7 billion each year.

Surprisingly, considering how little progress policymakers have made on this issue in the past, it garners bipartisan support. Democratic Senator from Massachusetts and 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren proposed a universal child care plan funded by a tax on the super rich. The Child Care for Working Families Act is floating around Congress. It would cap child care at 7 percent of family incomes on a sliding scale, increase wages for early childhood educators, and target child care deserts. Last year, legislators actually added $5.8 billion to the Child Care and Development Block Grant budget. This is progress. And if you want proof that providing families with child care helps them immensely, check out Washington, D.C.'s universal pre-kindergarten 3 and 4 program. It is life-changing for the 10 percent of women who were able to get back into the workforce thanks to this free child care. Even so, the District will soon require low wage-earning child care workers, many who have years of experience and little time or money to attend college classes, to have or get associate’s degrees. Advocates are finding ways to contest this disruptive regulation in court.

After I finally managed to patch together a Frankenstein collage of child care assistance that included two mornings of preschool, a nice sitter, and a co-working space with “play buddies,” the YMCA’s director finally called with an opening. My partner huffed as I told him he’d have to call in late to work so that he could do a walk-through of the center. I silently fumed thinking of the endless times I put my career on the line to take care of similar tasks.

He was attentive and engaged at the meeting. Back in the car, I shared that I was feeling very emotional about another upended plan and uncertain if we should take our son out of the preschool he just started to put him the daycare. “That’s why I don’t want to come on these visits,” he mused. “I don’t want to feel so emotional. I feel very protective of our son. I know I have to deal with it, I’m a grown up. But it gives me anxiety.”

That anxiety, he said, comes from his perception that the child care system is set up against parents. He wants to feel happy about sending our son somewhere safe to play and learn so that we can work, earn money, and not be so worried about his well-being all day. I appreciate the thoughtfulness, but still would love the extra help. There are elementary schools to research and summer camp spots to reserve in years to come. This is only the beginning.

But today, armed with a tiny budget, a lot of feelings, and a little more understanding of our situation, together, we mapped out a plan that hopefully will help our small family thrive.

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Celine Dion wants you to know that it's never too late. At 51 years old, the singer is just now finishing up a Las Vegas residency at Caesars Palace, putting on a performance four nights a week that involves sparkling gold gowns, a simulated waterfall, multiple gyrations, and a legendary high-kick that causes the audience to let out a single primal scream as adorations like "I love you" echo from the nosebleeds.

Though she's been famous worldwide since she was just a young Canadian singer competing on Eurovision 30 years ago, it's here now where Dion has found herself in the middle of her own renaissance, or, rather, a "Dionaissance." That's credited in part to a few very talented stylists, who have transformed Dion into a veriable style icon, and also, in a strange twist of fate, nearly predicted her next move. In February, Dion was spotted out in Paris wearing an oversized hoodie that read in big, bold letters: "I’m Worth It." One month later, Dion has now landed her first-ever beauty deal as a global spokesperson for L'Oréal Paris, the beauty brand known for the same slogan.

Though this partnership feels like a natural fit, as Dion told Refinery29 during a panel discussion with ABC News' Deborah Roberts in Las Vegas, this is something she actually did not see coming. "I never thought that L'Oréal Paris one day was going to ask me, at 50 years old, to become an ambassador," Dion, who turned 51 this past weekend, says. "It’s a miracle. You know, it’s never too late."

It's a miracle largely to Dion because, as she explained, she was once far from the confident, glamorous woman we see today. "When I was so young, not feeling confident, not feeling pretty, having problems with my teeth, being very skinny, being bullied at school… singing was a way for me to express myself," Dion says.

One of the other ways Dion asserted herself was through beauty and self care. "Don't tell me that you don’t believe that feeling good and looking beautiful is not helping you to walk sexy and to focus and to have a vision and to say, 'This is where I want to go because I have something to say and today I will be heard,'" Dion says.

Dion gets emotional when she talks about the power and strength of women, tearing up while talking about what women like her mother and grandmother had to deal with, and the silence that was expected of them. "The world is changing," Dion says. "It’s about time. It’s about time that women, in society today, become stronger."

She even gets choked up thinking about the power of something as simple as having a really good hair day. "The things we put on ourselves, the cream and the hair color and the conditioner and the nails and the makeup, it’s not just about, like, Oh I feel beautiful and sexy," she says. "Feeling beautiful makes you feel strong. And feeling strong makes you succeed."

In her own life, Dion's strength has certainly been tested. In 2016, Dion's husband and longtime manager, René Angélil, died after a long battle with cancer, leaving her a single mother to three sons — René-Charles, 18, and Eddy and Nelson, both eight. Rather than taking a few years off, as many expected her to do, she instead became more public than ever, frequenting haute couture shows and gaining a new following of enthusiastic fashion fanatics.

"I've never felt as beautiful or as strong, and I really think the best is yet to come," says Dion, who plans on releasing a new album, launching a children's clothing line, and then going on tour again, all the while serving as a L'Oréal's spokesperson, which will first have Dion advertising Excellence Hair Color.

As she told us: "Oh, you think I’m done? I’m just starting."

Travel and accommodations were provided by L'Oréal Paris for the purpose of writing this story.

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There's no shortage of reminders that time is flying: writing that rent check every first of the month, watching North West go from toddler to budding beauty influencer, and getting ready for another festival season as if we weren't just gripping our wigs over Beychella. But another sure sign of the clock ticking is making your way to Sephora for the first time in months, only to find yourself surrounding by all-new launches left and right.

With March now behind us, the beauty megastore is keeping us on our toes with spring-fresh launches, from 4/20-ready face masks to Game of Thrones eyeshadow palettes. Before you start to get overwhelmed by all the shiny new products in the Just Arrived section, we've rounded up the best things to hit Sephora this month. Go ahead and fork over that rent check, but be sure to set aside a little disposable income to breathe new life into your beauty routine.

At Refinery29, we’re here to help you navigate this overwhelming world of stuff. All of our market picks are independently selected and curated by the editorial team. If you buy something we link to on our site, Refinery29 may earn commission.

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Job interviews can be nerve-racking — and not just for the person who's being interviewed.

While there's plenty of advice on how to prepare for a job interview, these discussions are usually geared to the interviewee — not the interviewer. But for new managers who are not quite confident in their roles yet, figuring out how to conduct an interview can sometimes be just as stressful.

Sure, being the one to ask questions might seem like a breeze, but it can take some practice to learn how to ask the right questions and seek out the strongest candidates. So how should you prepare?

We chatted with seasoned interviewers Lindsey Walenga and Jenny Houser. Walenga is the cofounder of Siren PR, based in Royal Oak, MI and Houser is an operations manager at Bryr Studio in San Francisco, CA. The two shed some much-needed light on which questions to ask in an interview, what to avoid, and what they wish they'd done differently when they first started interviewing others.

The most important thing new managers should consider when preparing to interview someone:

Walenga: "Believe in yourself as a leader. If you’re new at building a team, you might feel the need to be overly friendly or, on the opposite end, too authoritative, as you’re getting used to the idea of being the boss. Both of those can cause problems when building a team. Instead, new managers should go into interviews with calm confidence and a clear picture of what high performance means for the position. Doing so will give candidates greater clarity on their fit for the role, and a foundation of trust will be started."

Houser: "Shadow as much as possible. Learn about hiring for culture, sit in on interviews with more experienced hiring managers, and practice with them in the room, as well. Gather feedback; the best thing you can do is be consistent in your interviewing, push through the discomfort, and stick with it! The more calm and relaxed you are in an interview, the more the candidate will be — and that's how you'll get to know them best."

Go-to interview questions (and what to look for in an answer):

Walenga: "A question I like to ask is: 'Tell me about a time you offended someone, whether that was a client, your boss, or someone on your team. How did you offend them, and how did you handle it afterwards?'

"I’m looking for honesty, authenticity, and boldness in the applicant's response. High performers on my team are people who are bold enough to sometimes get themselves into trouble. If you’ve never offended someone, then you’re not taking the risks we need you to be taking. But I also need to see that you can clean it up and navigate conflict with compassion, admitting when you’re wrong and coming out the other side with the relationship intact."

Houser: "My favorite interview questions are ones about feedback, such as: 'Tell me about a time you received critical feedback from a manager or supervisor.' This is a really telling question. I also love hearing about big success moments and experiences."

The best way to approach a job interview as a manager:

Walenga: "Kind and firm is the best approach for interviewing. It shouldn’t be an interrogation, but you’re also not there to make friends — yet."

Houser: "Really know the culture of the company. What are the most important attributes and qualities for team members? What kind of employees do they wish to have at their company? Your interview questions should be based off of this."

What new-ish managers should make sure to avoid:

Walenga: "Avoid leading the candidate’s answers. If you’re someone who likes everyone to get along, you might feel like you want to explain more or give examples to help make the conversation easier. That will hurt you in the end, because you need to see who this person is at their rawest, without your help. Awkward silences are okay. Sit in the discomfort. There is valuable information to be garnered when you let people stumble."

Houser: "Avoid agreeing or disagreeing with anything the person says. You can certainly clarify, but a big skill to learn is the practice of asking questions and then listening. Don't be afraid of silence, and don't ask leading questions. Allow the candidates to think and to speak."

What these managers wish they'd done differently when they first started interviewing people:

Walenga: "When we first started our firm, we were so excited by what we were doing that we were sometimes overly optimistic in our description of the roles. Our enthusiasm contributed to some unrealistic expectations on the team, which caused resentment down the road. I wish I had known what I know now: Tell it like it is, and don't sugarcoat it. You want team members who will rise to whatever challenge you put in front of them — not people looking for just a fun and easy ride. It can be hard to admit the tough parts about a job you’re recruiting for, but when you’re honest with yourself and your candidates, you’ll end up with a stronger team."

Houser: "When I first began interviewing people, I was nervous and I had a hard time keeping my tone casual and conversational. It certainly gets easier, but it probably took over 100 interviews for me to feel truly comfortable with the process."

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Justin Bieber is really striking out with his Instagram content lately. His pregnancy joke did not go over well with fans, after he hinted that wife Hailey Baldwin was pregnant for an April Fools' Day joke on Monday. Immediately he was called out for seemingly making light of infertility struggles. But that wasn't the only time he displayed insensitivity recently online.

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I remember Kim flying to see me on the set of can’t nobody hold me down. She took like a 12 hour flight to LA and 3 hour ride to the desert. With no complaints. Was always ride or die. From day 1! I called her BONNIE AND I WAS CLYDE! This picture will go down in history as the first time I said she was MINE!!!! AND THE FIRST TIME I TOLD HER I LOVE HER, little did I know I was hers. Miss you BONNIE ❤️ and will forever. Maaaaan life is beautiful to have had these experiences. Love you baby. @ladykp 🖤

A post shared by Diddy (@diddy) on Mar 30, 2019 at 5:42am PDT

On Sunday, Sean 'Diddy' Combs posted a loving tribute to his late ex-girlfriend and the mother of three of his children, Kim Porter. Porter passed away from pneumonia last November and since then Diddy has been openly grieving his loss. He shared a photo of he and Porter on the set of the music video for "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down."

"I remember Kim flying to see me on the set of can’t nobody hold me down. She took like a 12 hour flight to LA and 3 hour ride to the desert," Diddy wrote. "With no complaints. Was always ride or die. From day 1! I called her BONNIE AND I WAS CLYDE! This picture will go down in history as the first time I said she was MINE!!!! AND THE FIRST TIME I TOLD HER I LOVE HER, little did I know I was her. Miss you BONNIE ❤️and will forever. Maaaan life is beautiful to have had these experiences. Love you baby."

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@drewhouse #diddyfordrewhouse @diddy KP YOU WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED FOR THE STUNNING WOMAN YOU WERE INSIDE AND OUT..

A post shared by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) on Mar 30, 2019 at 10:45pm PDT

Shortly after, Bieber reposted Diddy's Instagram with a caption that seemed to promote his clothing line, Drew House. "#ddidyfordrewhouse @diddy KP YOU WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED FOR THE STUNNING WOMAN YOU WERE INSIDE AND OUT," Bieber wrote. It didn't take long before his fans began to call him out for his use of the photo.

"Delete this sir he shared this picture in memory of his wife not for promo for the clothing line," one wrote. Added another: "He was mourning about his girlfriend under the post. This is disrespectful." Bieber did not back down, instead he replied to commenters "ur wrong. God knows my heart, I know them and their family don’t tell me I’m being disrespectful I have all of the respect for both of them I didn’t realize it was a photo of him mourning KP but I totally respect that but I also respect how sick of a photo that is! It’s allay [sic] to appreciate art photographs are art and he happens to be wearing an identical outfit of my clothing line and I thought that was really cool."

Drew House sells branded sweats and tie dye T-shirts inspired by a smiley face emoji — all of which are sold out on the brand's website.

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It’s become apparent that sooner or later, every market will be made over in the millennial image. What started with brands like Glossier and Warby Parker has now grown to include direct-to-consumer toilet paper and consciously-crafted olive oil with packaging so hip it could have been designed by Rachel Comey. Now, the cleaning supply industry is being similarly disrupted, with so many new brands touting alternatives to traditional cleaners that aren’t just eco-friendly, but are also elevated, even aspirational. Don’t be surprised if the concept of the "shelfie" expands to include shelves of cleaning supplies.

It’s worth acknowledging that Tom’s of Maine has been producing green cleaning products since the early 1970s and Seventh Generation, one of the most well-known and widely distributed green cleaning brands, has been around for three decades. But what these newer brands — ones with dreamy, evocative names like Gaia, Full Circle, and Truce — are doing goes beyond better ingredients. They want to give the act of cleaning itself a rebrand. Monica from Friends aside, most people don’t enjoy washing their baseboards and scrubbing down the inside of their ovens. For most of us, caring for our homes is the epitome of a chore. But does it have to be? A few years ago, putting on eye cream wasn’t anyone’s idea of a riveting activity, and now skin care is a shared self-care obsession in certain circles. What if, with the right ingredients and packaging and attitude, the same thing could happen for cleaning house?

Many entrepreneurs seem to have come to this conclusion simultaneously, because my inbox is regularly inundated with related pitches. There’s Grove Collaborative, an online store which makes its own products and also sells bigger brands like Dr. Bronner’s and Method; Supernatural, a brand that uses essential oils and is sold on Goop; Cleancult, which comes in recyclable vessels resembling milk cartons; Love Home and Planet, which uses the tagline #smallactsoflove; Laundress, which makes cleaning and laundry products in black-and-white bottles chic enough to display; Murchison-Hume, which recently collaborated with fashion designer Jenni Kayne on limited-edition hand and dish soap, and so many others. If the shelves of your local grocery store don’t accurately reflect this boom, that’s because many of these products are sold exclusively online.

“One of our taglines is ‘clean butt naked,’” says Suzy Batiz of Supernatural, who is also the founder the bathroom spray brand Poo-Pourri. “The reason I did that — the reason you see naked people all over our site — is because the products are so gentle that you can actually clean naked. It’s the opposite of what you’re doing now, which is covering yourself up to clean your home.”

Supernatural products come in concentrate form — a popular shipping/packaging technique among green cleaning brands because concentrates weigh much less and therefore cut down on the overall carbon footprint — with elegant reusable glass spray bottles in which to mix with water. It took Batiz and a “hippie chemist friend” over two years to develop the formulas, which are made with aromatherapeutic oils — the same stuff that’s in scented candles and lotions — and sold for $75 per starter kit, or $10 per individual vial of concentrate.

Batiz started the company after her mother, a lifelong housewife, died of complications from Myelodeplastic Syndrome (MDS). Many in the medical community, including the doctor who treated her mother, theorize MDS may be caused by exposure to chemicals like benzene, which is present in many traditional cleaning products, as well as gasoline, soda cans, and cigarettes. “She cleaned with these toxic chemicals,” Batiz says. “I watched my mom die of this disease that seemed totally preventable. If it’s caused by chemical exposure, let’s just not expose ourselves to chemicals.”

When it comes to cleaning supplies, regulations are notoriously murky. The FDA does not require manufacturers to list their ingredients, and while some still do, it’s not standard practice. It also means it’s easy for brands to pretend to be something they’re not. Like “organic” labels on food, “green” is essentially meaningless. It’s little more than a marketing term.

“With ‘clean’ products, that’s not a chemical term. It has no meaning when it comes down to the actual chemistry of their ingredients,” says Elizabeth Trelstad, a chemist and the founder of Beaker, a website that vets cosmetics and home care products based on their ingredients. “This wave of ‘green’ formulation — most of the companies are still using majority synthetics and are really just creating a brand aura around the idea of green.”

Supernatural does list their ingredients, though, and it’s hard to dispute that products made of essential oils are probably better for you than ones with harsh, synthetic chemicals. But Batiz also says Supernatural products actually clean better than their more traditional competitors. I asked Trelstad if that could really be accurate. “Traditional, industrial cleaning products get their jobs done very effectively, but sometimes to a detriment,” she explained to me.

“I think an easy analogy that helps people understand this is facewash: most of the facewash on the market cleans your face really well. But a cleaner that works ‘well’ isn’t necessarily the best for you, because in working well, it strips some of your natural oils and sebum and you actually have worse skin. We, as consumers, don't always think of chemicals working in the ways that are best for us and for our needs,” Trelstad says. (Yes, another parallel between the skincare and cleaning supply industry has unexpectedly emerged.)

Trelstad is careful to note that this is a very generalized breakdown. To find which specific products clean the best or are the safest requires a chemical deep-dive, which is exactly what Beaker is beginning to do. But the bottom line is, if you feel good about what you’re cleaning with, you’re likely to do it a lot more often. The mere joy of having a clean house is a fine motivator (for some of us), but being genuinely invigorated by the act is even better. “The number one feedback I get all the time is, oh my gosh, I clean so much more, or my spouse hated to clean, and now he or she is cleaning,” says Batiz.

To this end, brands like Grove Collaborative are approaching marketing the same way a fashion house or beauty brand might, with limited-edition, seasonal collections. Their current offering, “Wildflower,” features things like dish soap with notes of bluebell, lily, and daisy and a metal cleaning bucket with a floral motif. Can these novelties ensure the excitement doesn’t wear off, exposing cleaning as the Cinderella-pumpkin-carriage it really is? We’ll see. But brands are certainly not the only ones helping conscious cleaning to become as mainstream as working out or juice cleansing or any other semi-unpleasant but nevertheless popular pass-time.

Chief among clean-positive figures is Marie Kondo. As anyone who has read her book or watched her Netflix show knows, Kondo is the patron saint of the house-cleaning-as-self-improvement movement. She emphasizes caring for one’s belongings and the cultivation of a clutter-free space, while touting the transformative nature of these experiences. And it’s working. A couple years ago, giving a friend cleaning supplies as a gift would be an act worthy of phone number deletion. Now, it might be kind of cool. Especially if they just finished binging Tidying Up With Marie Kondo. (Speaking of which, her company, KonMari, is now selling an $89 set of drawer-organizing boxes; perhaps Kondo-branded cleaning solvents are somewhere down the road.)

And what does it mean that the generations of women finally emancipated from the home are attempting to reclaim the responsibilities of their grandmothers? The irony isn’t lost on anyone. KonMari has been both lauded as having a “secret feminist message ” and criticized for upholding patriarchal values. But the thing is, no one’s being shamed into scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush until it sparkles. Instead, Kondo and these upstart cleaning brands espouse a celebratory philosophy: at long last, we finally get to do things — everything, including toilet-cleaning — on our own terms.

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Over the past month, fans have been curiously waiting to learn more about Poosh, a new project from Kourtney Kardashian, one of the more low-key members of the Kar-Jen clan. After a lot of teasing through Instagram photo collages and tweets containing the mantra "Educate, motivate, create, curate," Poosh is officially launching today, and Kourt herself is ready to dish.

Refinery29 caught up with Kourtney Kardashian ahead of the launch, and she told us all about Poosh — a new lifestyle website and e-commerce platform which will cover topics of health and wellness, life and style, interior design, beauty, motherhood, and more. Kardashian shared how she came up with Poosh's concept, the biggest challenge she faced in bringing the brand to life, and of course, where that already-iconic name came from.

Refinery29: How did you first come up with the concept for Poosh?
Kourtney Kardashian: My sisters and I used to have our apps, which were partnered with a company, and it was restricting in certain ways. There was a barrier to entry; you had to pay to get it, and I [never wanted] to go that direction when we started. Sarah, one of my best friends since high school, and I had lunch together, and we were going over ideas. She's been working on different blogs and stuff for years, and has her own beauty blog. This was something that I really wanted to build on my own and do the right way — to get my voice across [with] a team that believes in trying new wellness trends and other things, and [who] get my vibe.

I also felt like there wasn't anything out there that felt nonjudgemental, welcoming, and more of a conversation. I love to give people information, but we're all here to live our best lives. The message is trying to do our best; [that] doesn't mean being perfect. We're all kind of like Here are things that I like for me. If you want to try it, cool. Even with clean beauty — something I'm really interested in, and trying to advocate for better laws about the ingredients [used] in our products — I'm not perfect when it comes to that, either. I do use certain products that don't [have] top scores. It's just about having the information, making decisions and trying to do our best.

I also felt like there wasn't a space where you could care about what you're putting in [and on] your body, care about the environment [and be] a really invested mother — but then also feel cool and sexy. It seems like it had to be one or the other. You can have it all, and to me, the modern woman does care about what she puts in her body, the planet, all those things. That doesn't mean she has to give up one thing to have the other.

What has been the biggest challenge while creating Poosh?
The content has been coming pretty easily so far, but because we're truly building it ourselves, I realized I don't know too much about the technical side of things. I'm also a perfectionist, so I think that's the biggest thing. I want everything really perfect and a certain way, so just being understanding that everything will grow as we see what's working has been my challenge.

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A post shared by Poosh (@poosh) on Mar 4, 2019 at 12:02pm PST

One of the goals of Poosh is "elevating the traditional online experience from a monologue to a dialogue." How do you plan to accomplish that? Will there be a way for users to engage with you and the content aside from reading and shopping?
I've always used social media as a way to engage with people, [to] see what people are looking for and what they're asking for. We'll be able to see what pieces perform well, but Poosh also has its own Instagram account; when I had my application, it didn't have that. It's useful in the way people can leave comments and really engage and see the feedback. I think that will be a big different element from last time.

Tell us a little bit more about your editorial team. How did go about finding the members and building your team?
I'm writing some of the stories in my voice. We're also calling upon friends of mine, people that I go to for information, like my trainer, some of my doctors, one of my friends who's a therapist. There's also Sarah, who really put the rest of our team together for now. It will hopefully grow, but for now, it's pretty small.

We've created a nice little team. I'm heading to my house to have a meeting right now, and it's fun to work together as a group of friends. I'm so used to working with my sisters, and it's just been such a cool change.

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A post shared by Kourtney Kardashian (@kourtneykardash) on Mar 22, 2019 at 4:46pm PDT

Will your sisters be contributing to Poosh? Can you give us any names of some of those friends and experts that will be contributing?
I am going to have Stephanie Shepherd, one of my good friends, contribute. My trainer Amanda Lee. One of my good friends, Erica Spiegelman, she's a therapist. As far as my sisters go, I would love to do stories with them and get their tips just because they're in my life, but they're not contributors as of now. There are specific things they do that I think people would love to know more about, including myself, so I would love to have them write a story on certain things. I would love to ask them when the time comes to do that. Definitely.

Will the site have new content daily?
It will start with at least one to two stories a day, and then, hopefully, grow from there.

Who inspires you in the lifestyle space?
I love Rosie Huntington. She has Rose Inc., which is all about beauty. I really admire her and love what she's doing.

How did Poosh become a nickname for your daughter Penelope, and how did you decide to use it for your lifestyle website?
I don't know how we came up with Poosh. It's so funny because I found when naming my kids, I always thought, Oh, this is going to be their nickname and then it never ends up being their nickname. With Penelope, I thought we were going to call her 'Nelly,' and we really call her 'P' and 'Poosh' and 'Pen.' It's just so funny.

I don't even know how Poosh came about, but we've called her that for years. I call her that most of the time, like, I rarely call her Penelope. I have always loved the word, and we felt like it just worked. She's such a special little girl, who really is like our little muse. She inspires me to really live my best life, which is what this is about. She's very inspiring to me to want to be my best and do my best.

What is your home design aesthetic and what kind of interior design content can we expect to see on Poosh?
Well, I like that my aesthetic evolves. I like really simple, I don't like too modern. I think I really appreciate a lot of different styles when they're done well. I've always had this dream of buying different kinds of houses and decorating them in completely different ways, like, having a house in the mountains and decorating it a certain way and having a house on the beach and decorating it a different way. Since I was a kid, I've always dreamed of doing that. One of my New Year's Resolutions was to buy another house this year so that I could start making that dream come true. I do love and appreciate a lot of different design styles. I'd describe my home now as like casual, comfortable, California style. I don't like too fancy or over-the-top or glitzy for my personal style.

For our content, I'm sure it will evolve. I love to give things space and let it breathe and see what happens, so I would love to see where it goes with interior design. That is one of my favorite topics. I’m really interested in sharing the little things that I'm into at the moment. I'm re-doing a bathroom right now, and I cannot find a sconce that I like. My decorators showed me ten sconces, Scott will even send me sconces, different friends will send me sconces, and then yesterday, I was like 'Oh my god, I don't want any sconces. Let's just do none.' I just think it's fun to share those things. I'm constantly doing something because I like that outlet to use some of my creative energy. I'm doing two bathrooms in my house right now, which is not the biggest deal, but it's fun to share the little things. Like, I want a little olive tree in a pot, like a tiny one just to sit on a shelf. Just those little things that I'm into. And, I'd love to have someone on our team be really into it also and be able to show me new things.

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A post shared by Kourtney Kardashian (@kourtneykardash) on Apr 1, 2019 at 11:00am PDT

In addition to selling curated products, will you also create your own Poosh line of items that will be available?
I'm definitely interested in seeing where it all goes, but we don't really have anything in the works as of now.

Will we see you working on Poosh in this season of Keeping Up With The Kardashians?
Yes, absolutely! I had a lot of my meetings during this season because we've been talking about this idea since last May, so it will definitely be a part of the season.

Interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

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If you've spent several years' worth of Sunday nights parked in front of the TV watching Game of Thrones, at some point you're going to want something to show for that near-decade of dedication — whether that's making your apartment the go-to spot for watch parties or going the extra mile and finally getting that House Stark tattoo.

But if you're looking to pay homage to all those hour-long episodes you sat through with your heart in your throat hoping your favorite character wasn't about to meet their untimely end, in a way that doesn't involve permanent body art or decorating your house with (surprisingly expensive) sigils from the official HBO website, that's where nail art comes in.

You can subtly celebrate the iconic series with a simple design or go with a more obvious tribute — the possibilities are endless, and temporary, so you can shift allegiances to the winning team on a weekly basis if you see fit. We've rounded up some of the best designs or honoring GoT, for all the inspiration you need to show your fandom on your hands before, during, or even after someone has ultimately taken the Iron Throne.

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