THE JOKE’S ON US
The more we laugh, the richer Gwyneth Paltrow gets
Last week may go down in history as the one in which the impeachment articles of Donald Trump were sent to the Senate. Or it may be remembered as the week in which actress and hawker of New-age wares Gwyneth Paltrow released a candle entitled: “This Smells Like My Vagina.” In the first rough draft of history stakes, they currently appear neck and neck, Paltrow’s burning bush possibly having the edge.
GP, as she likes to be referred to by her acolytes, also announced Goop at Sea (what next, Goop on Ice?), a cruising version of her sellout wellness weekends, promising not only an audience with Paltrow herself, but “cutting-edge doctors, practitioners and thought leaders,” plus sundry “goopy perks” as part of life on the ocean wave. And Friday, her new Netflix series, The Goop Lab, premières, billed as “a curiosity-driven exploration of boundary-pushing wellness topics.” The advertisements for this show our heroine clad in plush pink, standing inside a series of labial shapes with the exhortation: “Reach new depths.”
One might rather say, “sink to new lows,” but this is precisely the reaction GP is cashing in on, and laughing all the way to the bank. The candle is already sold out — thus a collectors’ item — although readers can avail themselves of a waiting list at shop.goop.com. Arome de Paltrow does not come cheap: on sale for US$75, plus shipping, it promises “a funny, gorgeous, sexy and beautifully unexpected scent ... made with geranium, citrusy bergamot, and cedar absolutes juxtaposed with Damask rose and ambrette seed to put us in mind of fantasy, seduction and a sophisticated warmth.”
It is said to have evolved out of a joke between Paltrow and perfumer Douglas Little. Quoth Goop, “the two were working on a fragrance, and (Paltrow) blurted out, ‘Uhhh ... this smells like a vagina.’” And, lo, a legend was born.
I have not sampled said candle, but I know a woman who has. Cindy Gallop, founder and
CEO of video-sharing platform Makelovenotporn, tells me: “I love, love, love that Gwyneth Paltrow did this — both because it displays a sense of humour, and because we cannot have too many women bringing our sexuality into the mainstream.”
And the scent? “It smells like a bundle of roses wrapped in suede,” notes Gallop, “the platonic ideal of Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina. To be honest, it doesn’t smell like anyone’s vagina would in the real world, which is why, obviously, it’s not meant to be taken seriously. But I love the smell, I love the fact that Gwyneth
did this, and I love that I get to display a candle saying: ‘This smells like my vagina’ in my bedroom, between the copulating figurines I bought in the Shanghai antiques market. I’ll be using it when I have company there, and when I don’t.”
Paltrow, as ever, is on the money, zeitgeist-wise. Come February, Orion will be republishing Catherine Blackledge’s 2003 bestseller, The Story of V, as Raising the Skirt: The Unsung Power of the Vagina, celebrating the beauty and power of the female genitalia, and reclaiming anasyrma, the age-old vagina-revealing gesture, as the ideal 21st-century protest.
“Raising the skirt ... is a global gesture of dissent that has been used individually and collectively for millennia by women to vanquish those attacking their home, family, sisters, community, or way of life,” Blackledge says. “Vaginas ... are so powerful that if a woman lifts her skirt to reveal her genitalia, she can make a vast array of extraordinary actions happen.”
Paltrow’s fearsome vulva also makes a vast array of extraordinary things happen, not least the money it earns her, whether in its latest fragrant incarnation, or when steamed (as she infamously recommended back in 2015), dressed in “fur oil” ($60 for 75ml) or kept amused by a 24-karat-gold dildo ($15,000), and myriad other Goop-approved accessories. For GP isn’t happy unless her vagina is making the news, and she, in turn, is making money out of it.
Much of the stuff Paltrow advocates is plain old common sense dressed up in fancier pants: be it “conscious uncoupling” (not being a d--- when divorcing), Living Apart Together (couples not necessarily cohabiting full time), or the fabled “self-care” (baths are unquestionably brilliant). But it’s the woo-woo that brings in the wonga. She needs the vagina-brandishing to liven things up. Otherwise it’s all just so many placebo powders. I’ve seen the first couple of episodes of The Goop Lab and they are ploddingly dull. Frankly, I could have done with more below-the-belt action.
Paltrow knows that her purported flakiness makes millions. The more we laugh at her, the richer she gets. She’s not only in on the joke, the joke’s on us. Think of it as her greatest acting role to date: credulous New-age nutjob disguising bona fide commercial genius. Well might the woman have won an Oscar.
Paltrow’s fearsome vulva also makes a vast array of extraordinary things happen, not least the money it earns her.