A while back, Gwyneth Paltrow, who is among the world’s most disliked celebrities for her hauteur and insouciance, was selling jade “eggs” on her Goop website to insert into women’s vaginas. Unfortunately, the porous stone could cause infections, and doctors strongly warned against this practice.
Now she’s back with another quack remedy. Unlike the jade eggs, this one won’t cause any harm—except to your pocketbook. The woo this time comprises “wearable stickers” that promote healing. No dope–seriously! Paltrow, undoubtedly for a cut of the profits, is pushing “healing skin stickers” from the Body Vibes site. Click on screenshot to see the woo:
Gwynnie not only links to the Body Vibes site, but touts the stickers on Goop like this (my emphasis):
We’ve been geeking out about the healing power of energy recently (see our stories on earthing, and the fascinating research at the HeartMath Institute)—so it’s no surprise that Body Vibes, wearable stickers that rebalance the energy frequency in our bodies, have become a major obsession around goop HQ.
The concept: Human bodies operate at an ideal energetic frequency, but everyday stresses and anxiety can throw off our internal balance, depleting our energy reserves and weakening our immune systems. Body Vibes stickers come pre-programmed to an ideal frequency, allowing them to target imbalances. While you’re wearing them—close to your heart, on your left shoulder or arm—they’ll fill in the deficiencies in your reserves, creating a calming effect, smoothing out both physical tension and anxiety. The founders, both aestheticians, also say they help clear skin by reducing inflammation and boosting cell turnover.
P.S. Leaving them on for the prescribed three-day period left a few goop staffers with marks on their skin, so be careful to stick them somewhere concealable if you’ve got an event coming up.
Jebus! What woo I see before me!
If you click on the link about “earthing,” you learn that walking around barefoot will “ground” you, like an appliance, and allow the electrons of the Earth to flow into your body through your feet, neutralizing all those nasty free radicals that can hurt you. And you can buy “earthing” yoga mats, shoes, and even sheets so you can sleep grounded. Of course, they’re not cheap:
Here are some of the stickers, which, as the video below will tell you, have been pre-tuned with different frequencies of “bio-energy” that will seep into your body and cure any number of ailments:
Since they’re $6 per sticker, and the woman above is wearing three at a time, and you’re supposed to wear them no longer than three days, a month of this quackery will cost you about $180 (Goop is not cheap!)
If you want a laugh, listen to this eight-minute video of Richard Eaton explaining how these stickers can imbue your body with bio-energy. I’ve never heard such bullshit in my life.
The Goop website used to have, along with the description above, these words in bold:
“Body Vibes stickers (made with the same conductive carbon material NASA uses to line space suits so they can monitor an astronaut’s vitals during wear) come pre-programmed to an ideal frequency, allowing them to target imbalances.”
Well, Gizmodo contacted NASA and found out that’s just a lie (the phrase is now gone):
A representative from NASA’s spacewalk office told Gizmodo that they “do not have any conductive carbon material lining the spacesuits.” Spacesuits are actually made of synthetic polymers, spandex, and other materials that serve a purpose beyond making their wearer look like a resident of Nightmare Coachella.
Gizmodo has asked Body Vibes to provide us with the peer-reviewed research that supports their claim that their “astronaut” stickers have any impact on the human body. We’ve also asked Body Vibes and Goop for their response to NASA’s assertion that they definitely do not use a “carbonate material” to line their spacesuits. So far, no luck on either front.
As for the bio-energy in the damn stickers, a NASA guy took down Eaton, too:
“Without going into a long explanation about the research and development of this technology, it comes down to this; I found a way to tap into the human body’s bio-frequency, which the body is receptive to outside energy signatures,” Eaton told Gizmodo. He added that, conveniently, “Most of the research that has been collected is confidential and is held as company private information.”
Mark Shelhamer, former chief scientist at NASA’s human research division, wasn’t wooed by Body Vibes or its secret research.
“Wow,” he told Gizmodo. “What a load of BS this is.”
Shelhamer reiterated that space suits are not lined with carbon material, and that even if they were, it would be for adding strength to the suit—not for monitoring vital signs.
This is homeopathy for the rich. The real reason to dislike Paltrow is not her smugness, but her constant preying on the credulous, charging them tons of money for useless New Age “remedies” on her Goop website. Have a look around if you want to see how she enriches herself by bilking people.
Healing stickers? BAND AID!
I have some band aids with images of Jesus printed on them. Put one on my finger the other day and no Christian energy vibes seeped into me. I didn’t become a Christian.
Thank god!
Now where on earth did you get such a band aid?? A Jesus band aid? Can you get Buddha band aids? Krishna band aids?
Of course you can’t get Muhammad band aids…
So sad. She was a wonderful actress. What a waste.
How did they not have anything in there about toxins? Missed opportunity.
There is probably a separate toxin removal system in the works, it will be sold for an amazing introductory price of only $295.
Oh, lordy, there must be an awful lot of gullible people out there.
I think the 2016 presidential election made it painfully obvious that close to half the US populace are gullible. Clearly whomever said (often attributed to P. T. Barnum) “There’s a sucker born every minute” was right.
And the population is larger now, so the number of suckers born is probably > 1*min^-1
This is so ridiculous that it makes me think she is just trying to see if there are limits to people’s gullibility. While making a buck.
She is the worst purveyor of woo there is. I don’t know if she believes in any of this BS or if she just knows she has a captive audience of gullible idiots to whom she can sell things, but this is a great example to bring up when people say only the right engages in science denialism.
I used to see concerts for a band that had a very heavy presence of hippies/pseudo-hippies in their crowd of followers. There was always constant talk everywhere about crystals, vibrations, higher planes of existence, herbs, etc. It was painful.
Hey, remember the vagina egg?
Sorry, I accidentally hit send before finishing my last sentence. Was supposed to read “Hey, remember the vagina egg? Apparently it’s still stuck in there and its toxic effects have finally reached the brain.”
I don’t think she does. There’s a Youtube clip of her on one of those American chat shows and the host asks her about some of Goop’s products and it left me with the impression she thinks it’s all a big joke.
That would, of course make what she is doing fraud.
“…it left me with the impression she thinks it’s all a big joke.”
A big joke that makes her millions of dollars a year! Too bad she couldn’t just build and run an honest business like Jessica Alba (who was never a great actress, but has certainly earned my respect as a savvy businesswoman).
“That would, of course make what she is doing fraud.”
I doubt this could be proved in court…unfortunately 😦
Why? Do you really think that every celebrity who endorses a product believes in it? Is it somehow necessary for an owner to believe in their own product or do they have to just comply with laws against false advertising?
Makes me want to declare myself a different species.
Gwyneth strikes me as heavy on the hauteur, light on the insouciance. I like me some insouciance (‘course a little goes a long way). Ms. Paltrow’s too tightly wound for insouciant. Now her momma, Blythe Danner, OTOH, does insouciance right (even when she’s playin’ Greg Focker’s up-tight mother-in-law).
Practicing medicine without a license? Quackery at its finest!
Cheaper way to be grounded: hold onto an unpainted cold-water pipe. And when in the subway you can also try pissing on the third rail.
Or stick a fork into an electrical outlet. Instant results.
That true about peeing on the third rail — or do I hafta head down to Penn Station, give it a go myself? (I always assumed it was an urban legend.)
Maybe better start with an electric fence 🙂 A favorite prank pulled on our city cousins.
Pissing on the third rail will NOT ground you. Quite the opposite in fact. (It will probably levitate you!)
The running rails are the grounded ones.
cr
aestheticians: a person who is knowledgeable about the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art (it says on Wikipedia)
Why exactly would one consult such a person on a “healing” issue.
Perhaps an occasional zit or baggy-eyes is considered a disease to be healed among those of the tony beau monde?
Not entirely implausible – Maybe they have found a way to use something like DMSO to transport stimulants percutaneously – that would give you an energy boost!
Gullibility is inversely proportional to scientific literacy!
Oy. What a species we are?
The grounding mats are interesting. It looks like someone just took some anti-static mats and relabeled them with woo. They are quite useful in preventing static electricity build up while working on sensitive electronics.
Would that Darwin stickers protected us from creationists. How about Dawkins stickers?
A good way to save money would be to use the Deepak Chopra technique of corralling “quantum entanglement” and “spooky action at a distance,” to get the benefit of the patches without actually buying them. And if you do that properly, your children need not worry about themselves, as they will be optimized at birth via epigenetic imprinting.
Hmmm…that puts me in mind of a possible antidote to quackery. Set one quack up against another. Get them to denounce one another. Chopra will denounce Paltrow, Paltrow will denounce Oz, etc. Get them all on the same stage and let them have at it.
Actually, that might be a good way to separate the charlatans from the “sincere” pomos and other subjectivists. On the other hand, I’m not so sure. You never hear of confrontations at new-age expos and the like where there is lots of different (and incompatible) woo on offer.
I wonder if their target demographic is impressed by the claim that they’re using the same materials used by NASA. Seems like that crowd should realistically respond to such a pitch with the same enthusiasm as one promising “30% more fluoride.”
This may be Huey Lewis’s fault.
Count down sequence has begun to consciously uncouple from all GP awareness.
I’ll take the Hangover 10-pack please…
Woo about health has been around since forever, one way or another, usually sold as an opiate for the stupid. Quickly, activate the interositer!
“Since they’re $6 per sticker, and the woman above is wearing three at a time, and you’re supposed to wear them no longer than three days, a month of this quackery will cost you about $360 (Goop is not cheap!)”
I think this was inadvertently doubled. $6 per sticker, 3 stickers on one side (the left – “near the heart”). One month=30 days and every 3 days you replace the stickers=10 times a month. 6x3x10 = $180/month. That is a family’s cellular phone plan. Expensive, but at least not a new car loan payment.
Yikes, that is still expensive for worthless crap.
Yep, you’re right. I fixed it, thanks!
I use to love walking around in barefoot. Not because it ‘grounds’ me, but just because it feels good. But now I’m more afraid of a Lyme-infected Tic burrowing into my skin.
That, of course, should have read,’Tick’.
I’m a serious barefooter, have been for decades. No, I’m not “grounded”, but it does feel really good to go without shoes.
http://www.barefooters.org
As for ticks, I got a tick while wearing shoes. Wearing foot coffins did not protect me. If you used to love being barefoot but stopped because of ticks, maybe that was unnecessary.
I agree about the ticks. Bare feet are probably not a problem as long as you take precautions. They grab on for a ride at any level you brush against them – on a blade of grass or a branch from a bush. Then they climb up until they find a nice spot to dig in with their proboscis. Upper leg, under your waist band, or in your scalp. Shoes don’t prevent them from getting a foothold. Many people find that rolling your socks up over your pants keeps them on the outside where they can be spotted and removed.
In much of the West there have been no reports of Lyme, although ticks are full of other nasties you don’t want in your system either. Here in Dutchess County NY, we are only a short distance from Lyme, CT where the disease was first detected. Deer ticks are sometimes thick in the woods and we always check for them every time we get back from a hike.
Pissing on the third rail will NOT ground you. Quite the opposite in fact. (It will probably levitate you!)
The running rails are the grounded ones.
cr
Damn, that was a reply to a different comment.
Grrr….
cr
I’m a serious barefooter too. Only time I wear shoes is when catching public transport or e.g. going shopping (and not always then).
Never caught a tick (that I know of) – maybe we don’t have ’em in New Zealand or maybe I’ve just been lucky.
cr
P.S. Having just read that part of the original post, I hasten to add that going barefoot has absolutely nothing to do with ‘earthing’. As far as I’m concerned, anyway.
cr
“…it left me with the impression she thinks it’s all a big joke.”
A big joke that makes her millions of dollars a year! Too bad she couldn’t just build and run an honest business like Jessica Alba (who was never a great actress, but has certainly earned my respect as a savvy businesswoman).
“That would, of course make what she is doing fraud.”
I doubt this could be proved in court…unfortunately 🙁
Sorry, don’t know why the website did this. I clicked reply to someone else’s comment, but it posted it as a new one. My apologies, Jerry.
My Accura just accelerated! No way did I hit the wrong pedal!
🙂
As a teenager, I did that more times than I care to admit.
This stuff kills me. I have an acquaintance who was telling me about the miraculous powers of the Grounding mats and sheets. He’s one of those people that is into InfoWars and chemtrails and other weirdness. He said they were tested in a triple-blind study and proven to work. I did some research and guess who conducted the trial? The investors in the grounding products business.
I have a friend who is passionately into environmental issues — and woo. She endorses earthing and the healing energy of the earth, among other nonsense. I don’t know how many of her assertions re pesticides, honeybees, deforestation, and sustainable farming are reasonable and more or less science-based … and how many are either gross exaggerations or crap. I doubt she can discern the difference.
It’s not an area I’m particularly well-versed in, but I find her regular attempts to persuade me pointless. I don’t trust her. If she is correct about something, it’s at least partially an accident.
This is why I get really annoyed when people laugh at the credulous Middle Ages. Look around! There are more crackpot ideas now than a thousand years ago, and with less excuse.
I know a nurse married to a prof at a med school. She believes in just slightly less obviously crazy stuff, like cucumber water being amazingly healthy. Think about it, that can only be true if the rest of the cucumber that you discard is harmful.
I love that Paltrow good for the skin stickers leave a mark!
I feel well whenever I walk barefoot on the ground, especially where there is grass, maybe this due to the physical sensation of my foot on the ground or is grounding really effective, who knows.
Maybe I missed it in the above comments, or in the story itself, but here is a link to a recent GOOP summit that didn’t go off swimmingly: https://nypost.com/2017/06/11/inside-gwyneth-paltrows-ridiculous-goop-summit/
Jibbers.
My reaction : we need a MUCH higher top income tax rate.
When you breath sometimes you can end up as an airhead and here is living proof, she should try releasing her foo foo valve or is that, woo woo.
If she plugged herself into the mains supply, that would revive her balance, always perked me up after the odd electrical shock.
If Gwynneth really wants to be “grounded” she should wrap herself completely in tinfoil. Why stop at just the usual woo-ey tinfoil hat?
All this talk of balancing energy frequencies with stick-on labels reminds me of something – oh yes, audiophile woo.
Let me see, where was it – oh yes, here:
http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina64.htm
I think it’s a Gish Gallop of technobabble, but to be honest my brain started to wilt after the first half-dozen paragraphs.
(I haven’t checked, but I’ll bet they sell humongously expensive cables – SORRY, interconnects – too).
cr
Just occurred to me, maybe the whole site is a Poe?
cr
Estheticians, surely?
It would be interesting to see if one can determine whether or not the following explains some of the “famous people” behaviours: some famous people are genuinely talented in one way or other, and some are lucky. Some of course are both. Now, those in the lucky category (to whatever degree) might well attribute their success to them, because we are good “rationalizers”. So I would predict that the successful might actually have *more* superstitions than others for this reason.
Confounds: counting superstitions (is being Catholic *and* thinking something “special” happened at Fatima distinct?) Also, there seems to be a difference in kind when they are actually relevant to the role (even if in a nonsensical way), like how (now retired) NHL goalie Patrick Roy used to talk to his goalposts, and unlike GP’s goop – because that part of her is presumably not related to her success. (It would be, perhaps, if she was some *other* kind of actor.)