I don’t have that much time for people who complain about things for which they are quite plainly not the demographic. Don’t like Radio 4? Don’t turn it on. Don’t like the Daily Mail? Don’t read it. Don’t like kimchee? Don’t eat it.
I have a billion prejudices, things and people and places and activities I cannot stand – and I avoid them. That’s enough, it’s not the case that I wish to evangelise until other people boycott those things, too.
So it is with goop. Whenever I mention Gwyneth Paltrow’s mega-million wellness enterprise I am mostly met with positivity; most people say: it’s intriguing, it’s fascinating, it’s a glimpse into another world.
But you also get the people who say “the advice is dangerous” or people so fixated on the uterus-steaming thing they cannot really see beyond to anything else (I swear that poor woman will have a reference to that in every single one of her obituaries when the time comes).
I’m one of the people who finds it only fascinating. I want to know what someone with Gwyneth Paltrow’s resources and preoccupations thinks, does, eats, wears. Not so I can copy her, (I can’t afford it for a start), I just want to know. I’m a journalist, I’m curious. And what other person in her position opens up her life like that, admits how hard she works, what it takes?
Tell me, Gwyneth! Tell me everything.
Perhaps some people who are negative about the whole thing maybe worry that people will take the advice, the warnings of the auto-immune diseases around every corner, literally and very much to heart. What can I say? Modern medicine has probably failed them to the degree they will try anything. I know that doctors at my local health practice sometimes reduces me to a flurry of hand-gestures at their door as I leave.
As for the slightly wacky turn of phrases, the “conscious uncoupling” and the talk of lighting your own path and opening up your chakra or whatever, well… *whispers* that’s just how some Americans talk.
Me? The two things I have taken from goop are that a grey crewneck sweater is suitable for almost every occasion, (entirely correct), and also a lamb tagine recipe, which is really good. That’s a strike rate of 100% for me and goop so far.
So when goop asked me to do some sponsored posts for them, based on it being the 10 year anniversary of the first newsletter and the pop-up store in London, (the first one outside the USA), I said hell. Yeah.
The store is at 188 Westbourne Grove, snuggled in with other incredibly glossy and incredibly expensive boutiques and shops that dominate that strip these days. It comes on, as you step through the door, like many high-end lifestyle set-ups, but with one difference in that this is goop. On the ground floor there are clothes, the new G Label and a collection of other high-end stuff, jewellery and shoes. Downstairs is home and cookware. Only Gwyneth could make chipboard look good.
But I went straight to beauty. Do you remember when Maybelline and Carmex were only purchasable from America? The ownership of such items was a status symbol unlike, really, anything else? It said “I have been to America” before people went to New York all the freaking time. That is what I was after. What can you get in this store that you can’t get easily anywhere else? It possibly goes without saying, but it worth repeating, that all of this is the legendary “clean” beauty; no parabens or other stuff that people get upset about.
For a start there is Olio E Osso. Anyone who remembers Ruby and Millie (RIP) may remember their clever lip and cheek tints in a rectangular wind-up stick – they are reborn here.
There is also a clear balm by the same brand, which I have been using, which is outstanding at softening any dry skin, inducing my desperate, picked-at cuticles.
In the same vein there is also Balmyard, which has facial oils and this cheek and lip tint.
Another name to remember is Tata Harper, who carries a number of fantastically expensive beauty treatments and also this slightly more affordable tinted balm (the word “balm” has ceased to make any sense to me). I have not tried this but my friend AC who has no time for anything sub-optimal loves this immensely.
Onto skincare, this is a cult goop product, basically one of those faintly acidic facial treatments that “exfoliates” your skin in the most pure chemical sense. I am very into this kind of thing, though I haven’t actually tried it so don’t sue me! (Sue goop) but the beauty director who showed me around said she used it twice a week and her skin… my god…. her skin was like poetry.
Another bestseller, May Lindstrom’s “the problem solver”, I loved for the sheer insanity of how it comes in a powder but then you mix it with water and spread the resultant mousse over your skin with a brush. Like Sand + Sky but goop. This is sold out online but available at the pop up.
I mean, it’s like they saw me coming with this. I can’t remember what this smelled like but it was pretty goddamned nice. Not too Jasmine-y.
I’m afraid I could only be beside myself when I saw in the store the very hair turban I have been recommending for years on The Spike. If you fancy my hair, get this. Brush your hair, wash it, jimmy it up in this turban, LEAVE IT FOR 20 MIN, unleash it, do not brush, blow dry the front part only, leave the rest to dry naturally and you will have my hair.
goop fragrances, ranged from edition 01 to edition 04, are crackers, truly like nothing you have ever smelled, all very masculine, challenging; the one I was given 02, I put on and just recoiled – what is this?! – but over about 30 minutes it mellowed out to something totally original and intoxicating. Alas, fragrance is such a strange thing in that you can’t buy online, you have to go and try on. But if you get one of these you will not smell like every other slimhips wearing Eccentric Molecules.
Okay just two more things and then I’ll let you go. These are both only in-store.
First, the jewellery. I loved, loved, loved Loquet – little glass lockets that you can fill with weeny trinkets. Like Anina Vogel but possibly even more expensive? And Foundrae; an It-Girl, faintly wacky, gothic, celestial brand that is nonetheless insanely covetable.
And that’s all the news printed to fit! Oh god I forgot to mention the sex toys. There are sex toys. I couldn’t believe my eyes and sniggered, it was very childish of me.
Come on, then, what do you think about goop? Please leave a comment in the handy box below.
Sadly I am not your ‘friend AC who has no time for anything sub-optimal’ but I am going to steal her approach.
No she is Anne-Christine, so close. Let’s just pretend you are.
Deal.
Just read post over cappuccino in quiet arcade in Rhodes. Bliss. I’ll be browsing Goop later in hotel. Looks seriously good – I’d have sneered inwardly before your post. Shame on me.
I still have a previous post ‘re cuticle. Mine are touch so will be looking at above again
Your cuticles ONLY need oil, regularly. Any kind. Olive oil will do, but this stuff is easier to get into your handbag.
I am NOT the demographic so going to bite my knuckle really hard and just say that I have a low threshold for faux-sciencey wellness shite, but everyone else is of course welcome to go and get well at their own peril. I don’t have a negative view of GP herself, I quite admire how she serenely passes through life being great at it. I did like GOOP in the early days but honestly it floated further and further out of my reach like a pretty lantern destined to land somewhere else, and perhaps burn down a cow.
I do recommend everyone read the Taffy Brodesser-Akner profile of Gwyneth in the New York Times though – in fact read all the profiles by TBA you can get your hands on, she is so great – it is *chef’s kiss*.
Yes Cindy I loved that. I think the drifting towards to edgy wellness stuff happened because every time they posted about an edgy wellness thing their website just lit up (as it says in the TBA profile) – so it only made good sense to them. I am not the demographic either, but I’ll have a bloody good look xxx
Agreed! T B-A is amazing. Loved the Bradley Cooper one.
I REALLY love her It’s All Good cookbook. People invariably roll their eyes when bring it up, but I have cooked more from there than most of the other dozens of cookbooks I own, and its the only ‘wellness’ type collections I have ever had time for. One of the few collections where I go back do same recipes again and again.
I also strongly covet that black military coat from the GOOP own brand. Feel it would last for years.
I find the cynicism so tiresome – of course she’s not right about everything, but she’s not wrong about everything either!
Yes, she’s only one voice in the conversation and she’s an easy target. Plus I think that in the UK we don’t quite understand how much weird stuff they put in food in the US. Every American I’ve ever met spends most of their time reading the backs of food packing to see if things are safe to eat.
Yes to this! My favorite part of living in the UK was not needing to read food packaging
We carry bags of candy back from Germany whenever we go over because half my family gets headaches from American food dyes – in fairness half my family gets headaches from other stuff too (kaffir lime leaves? raspberry ketones? if this were a regency novel we would all have taken to the bed claiming nervous complaint at age twenty and stayed there).
You have to add in too the libertarianism of the US medical system, where you can generally find a licensed physician somewhere who will agree with pretty well anything you think of
Not a fan of GOOP. Hence I avoid it. Sadly, it wormed its way into my inbox via The Spike today. But as I generally enjoy most things Spike, I will let it slip… 🙂
Well, it’s generous brands like GOOP sponsoring posts like this that keep The Spike free and alive, so you’re good to look the other way x
Everything Cindy says. Whilst I admire GP grudgingly (come on, she shagged Brad Pitt in his hottest days and was mates with Madge, I mean ENOUGH… )I feel most of Goop is out of my writer’s wage league… My husband met her and thought she was amazing. Sigh. GOOP for me used to be a cute mail out of interesting recipes etc and then morphed into ‘this candle is $500 – buy it and you too can be GP.’ I think not.
The hair turban is the best thing about Goop and even better it’s available to purchase via loads of alternative online outlets!
I’m probably slightly older than the target GP demographic but make up for that by being hugely susceptible to lovely pictures, possibly slightly off-the-wall ideas & beautiful products. A real sucker. I know myself. (Suffice to say I’m regularly ordering boxloads of stuff – mostly collagen powder & probiotics from Beauty Heroes in the US.) Good on GP for having the ideas, doing it, surviving all the cynical brickbats. Haven’t quite dared to step over the threshold of Goop’s pop up yet cos I know I’d be leaving considerably poorer….. but it won’t be long.
Leaving aside the occasional forays into properly medical things (which I’m not keen on), I’ve never understood the animosity towards GP and Goop. It reminds me a bit of the mean comments people made about Pippa Middleton’s Celebration book for not being War & Peace. It is what it is. Let’s face it, if people wanted to read well-evidenced and peer-reviewed information about health and lifestyle, we’d all be hooked to NHS Direct, and we’re not.
I like Goop for its combination of lovely (although expensive) fashion and home stuff, great recipes and occasional bonkers-ness. I also thought Gwyneth got ridiculous stick for the whole “conscious uncoupling” thing, which I actually think is quite a good way to approach a divorce, especially when there are children involved. Better than slagging each other off and have screaming matches.
It was when Gwyneth was on Saturday Kitchen or Something for the Weekend and her family friendly recipe was crab burgers made from 1kg of fresh white crab meat that I stopped looking. I mean, who spends £50 minimum on the protein element of their kids’ dinner? Well ok, I mean, obviously her, but the idea that this was the recipe to showcase from her family recipe book left me reeling a little. Still grimly fascinated though, exactly as you say.
What about the tagine recipe?
I’ll put my hands up and say I am exactly the right audience for GOOP. I love this. I can’t afford most of it, obviously, but the whole ‘wellness’ thing, I’m a sucker for reading that kind of thing. I also vaccinate my children and go to the doctor, I just find it interesting. One interesting perspective. And while GP might be a bit extreme I agree that in America food is a whole different ball game and we should all probably consume less crap. Excellent reporting as usual Esther, I’m off to resubscribe to the goop newsletter. Elaine x
Ps. Will not rest until I have a rose quartz facial roller.
I love Gwyneth ! She is just so gorgeous and cool. I want to know what she wears, how her house is decorated , everything!! I like Goop for the style and travel articles but I skip most of the wellness stuff. I think it’s awesome you are reviewing some of her products because I have been intrigued for ages and I really trust your opinion. Xx
has anyone had a problem with customs when ordering from Goop. I know they’re supposed to ship to UK now, but my order got held up…
Oh Emily this is awful. Do you have an order number? I will investigate. Did they say it was a customs issue?
oh it’s okay, it turned up yesterday (Monday). Had a phone call from them asking me to confirm that the goods weren’t worth over a certain amount (can’t remember what) and then they agreed to send it on. But thanks for offering to investigate…
Thanks Emily, that’s a relief to know.
Just checking in to report that the hair turban gets five stars from me. Well, maybe 4.8 as the label scratches one ear… I should unpick it and end the suffering. I don’t quite have your hair Esther (yet?!) but it is a huge improvement. Thank you for the recommendation yet again.
P.S I would definitely subscribe to your blog. All the things I’ve bought on your recommendation have been roaring successes. (Clogs!!, dresses, eyeliner, hair turbans to name a few).