Rachel Strugatz

There are apparently five contenders in the mix to succeed Fabrizio Freda as the next C.E.O. of The Estée Lauder Companies—including Jane, an heir to the Lauder fortune.

Rêve and Doux, the company's new fragrances, had a buoyant debut. But will they offer the sort of sustained success required to create a scent portfolio and offer Emily Weiss (and Kirsten Green… and Josh Kushner…) that long-awaited exit?

Despite recent layoffs, Gwyneth has found her groove in the food business and gotten serious (no more vagina candles) about her beauty brand. But can her wry, in-on-the-joke WASP aesthetic and celebrity icon status overcome C-suite troubles and find her an exit?

Jane, an ELC exec and a runner-up to replace departing C.E.O. Fabrizio Freda, has announced she's stepping back from the company her grandmother built, along with her cousin William Lauder. How will this notably un-familial succession drama, and the new reign of Stéphane de La Faverie, scramble the company the Lauders are leaving?

Gwyneth's eternally unprofitable startup is facing yet another crisis, with a flailing beauty brand, a third round of layoffs, and a founder who's realizing the limits of building a brand around her own personality. Will Goop ever locate an exit?

After being passed over for the C.E.O. job, and as she exits her family's storied beauty company, Jane Lauder took a sharpened eyeliner pencil to her cousin William in a leaked letter calling for his ouster from the board. Is this a petty family skirmish, an overdue governance change, or the first salvo in a new era at the historic beauty company?

Deciem—and particularly its top brand, The Ordinary—was never a cookie-cutter Lauder business. Now, Nicola Kilner, the C.E.O. credited with holding it all together, is departing, and the company is feeling the growing pains.

News, notes, and talmudic meditations on the new (and, in many ways, overdue) partnership between Gwyneth Paltrow and Cassandra Grey—and the “fixer” at the center of it all: Julia Hunter.

Despite rose-tinted expectations, it's shaping up to be a barren year for beauty business hookups, as sellers and buyers diverge over valuations and strategic investors pull back.

Rhode, the Hailey Bieber-founded beauty brand, has scaled up from a one-off celebrity lip gloss line into a nine-figure business with aspirations to be the Skims of beauty—and that includes charting a future that's less dependent on its famous founder.