If you're like me, you live in an eternal
hellscape of constant fear and sorrow, if
not because of the news, at least because
of the new season of Love Island. Kissing
strangers during a pandemic while having to
live on the roof of a Vegas hotel is a full
nightmare. As bad as things are, it makes
sense that people are looking for comfort
wherever they can find it—including from
miracle products that promise to make them
feel better and give them hope. But what can
seem like innocuous woo—from charging your
crystals in the moonlight to lighting a candle
to ward off Mondays—can quickly devolve
into pseudoscience that at best is a waste
of money and at worst is dangerous. In fact,
anti-science behavior is on the rise—something
that has directly undermined America's health
care response to COVID-19. And women, in particular,
are relentlessly preyed upon by companies
that work to exploit their insecurities while
making impossible claims. It's pseudoscience,
and we can't talk about it without first addressing
my favorite offender: Goop.
- With the Goop juggernaut valued at $250
million, all this publicity is probably part
of the plan. Paltrow in the role of leader.
She's focused on building a Goop empire. And
in the largely unregulated wellness industry,
the Goop Lab may bring her largest audience
yet.
- It's not that we're opposed to conventional
medicine; we just also are very interested
in alternative medicine. I've always been
that person who has sort of introduced the
culture or the media to things that people
think are weird.
- Is the ire and flack worth it to you?
- Oh yeah, of course.
Gwyneth, it is not worth it. I say that as
someone who once got a comment online about
my dump truck ass. And that was a compliment.
Goop sells products that are perfect for the
woman who has everything but the weirdest
s*** in the world. Things like vitamins that
claim to help someone function at an "intense
pace," rip-off Lisa Frank stickers that boost
"cell turnover," psychic vampire repellent,
and a vibrator that is also a necklace finished
in 24 karat gold. It's also a wine opener.
So be real careful what setting it's on when
you use it. Goop recommends questionable spa
treatments like vaginal steaming, which involves
sitting over a bowl of boiling hot water infused
with herbs to "cleanse" and "freshen" the
vagina. If that sounds dangerous and unnecessary,
it's because it is! One woman received second
degree burns after attempting to steam her
vagina. Even weirder, those burns were on
her face! Of course, none of that is going
to stop Goop. They still sell products and
treatments that claim to fix various medical
issues even as they're called out for fraud.
- The wellness empire has agreed to pay $145,000
for allegedly promoting what critics say are
unscientific claims. One product mentioned
in the suit—the provocative jade and rose
quartz egg products, which marketed themselves
to women as a way to balance their hormones
and increase bladder control.
Some women even sleep with that jade egg in
their spunk huts, which can put a person at
risk for bacterial vaginosis or toxic shock
syndrome. It's truly the worst thing Paltrow
has endorsed putting inside your vagina since
Chris Martin. And it's not just Goop. The
4-trillion-dollar global wellness industry,
which largely targets women, has run afoul
of the FDA by promising claims they can't
possibly deliver. As long as a product doesn't
claim to mitigate, treat, or cure anything,
companies don't have to prove it actually
does what it's advertising. Which is why my
own company had to recall our face cream that
promised to cure death, kill God, and let
you live forever. It will only kill God. And
because there is no legal definition for terms
such as "clean" or "natural," those words
can mean whatever the fuck companies want
them to.
- Clark's Botanical Skin Care has clean, natural
ingredients all backed by science.
- Covergirl Clean Fresh Skin Milk.
Mmm. In Canada, we buy our skin milk in bags.
People haven't been this obsessed with the
word “clean” since they debuted the new
sexy Mr. Clean. Mama's gonna need two mops
when I see that man. In one survey, 90% of
consumers believed that natural or naturally
derived beauty ingredients were better for
them. But chemicals aren't inherently bad
for you. Too much of anything can be toxic
for your body. It's like how one Arby's jalapeño
roast beef slider is a tasty meal, but 20
will cause your baby to come out wrong. Which
leads us to the biggest, scariest buzzword
in wellness and beauty: toxins.
- This is the hot stuff for ingredients now,
everybody wants charcoal. What does it do?
- It acts like a sponge in our body, pulling
toxins out.
- A foot bath that some spas claim can actually
remove toxins from your body.
- It's going to help draw toxins out of your
feet.
The word "toxins" has been consistently misused
by the wellness industry for decades, capitalizing
on long-held beliefs that women's bodies are
unclean. But while detoxing is a legitimate
medical procedure that rids the body of dangerous
levels of alcohol, drugs, or poisons, detoxing
for "wellness" isn't—i.e. juice cleanses,
colonics, and activated charcoal. That's especially
true if you do activated charcoal the way
I do—by eating a whole briquette. Products
that target women using s****y science are
costly, ineffective, and most worryingly,
can put their lives in danger. Sadly, it makes
sense that women would be open to alternative
wellness. Women face higher chances of misdiagnoses,
have been left out of medical research, and
frequently report that doctors take their
pain less seriously. The infinitely long marginalization
of women in medicine has made it easier for
a lot of us to believe in medical conspiracy
theories like bras causing breast cancer,
vaccines causing autism, or that putting a
garlic clove in your vagina will stop yeast
infections. It won't. It will just stop vampires
from going to third base. Mistrust in science
in general is the reason so many people believe
masks cause coronavirus and nearly 30% of
Americans believe coronavirus was created
in a lab. This is a terrible time to consciously
uncouple from science. Like most parts of
society, the medical community has a lot of
work to do when it comes to serving people
who are not white men. But it is not okay
for companies to take advantage of people
looking for help. Just like it was not okay
for Barnes and Noble to recommend Sean Penn's
novel Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff when I asked
for a romantic summer read. It wasn't. And
it turned out he didn't just do much. Two
stars out of five.
