Why the search for beauty turns women into gullible fools

What sensible woman believes any vitamin supplement can help cure exhaustion, bad digestion, constipation, irregular periods, colds and other infections?

Or that carnelian crystals treat infertility, Vitamin D3 wards off cancer and a perfume improves your memory?

Well, the gullible millions who follow Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop do, apparently.

and many are prepared to pay £72 a month for these miraculous products. Goop is now under investigation by a marketing watchdog over ‘deceptive’ health claims about 50 of its advertised products.

the U.S. not-for-profit group tINa (truth in advertising) says Goop ‘does not possess the competent and reliable scientific evidence required by law to make such claims’.

No surprises there. the only real eye-opener is that there are so many well-heeled, middle- class women falling for this nonsense.

Certainly, there’s something irresistible about Gwynnie, the selfstyled guru of pure living. She looks fabulous, is worth about £40 million, has two children as beautiful and healthy as she is and has consciously uncoupled, in apparent bliss, from her former husband Chris Martin.

So many buy into her because, in this silly world of celebrity, they want to be like her, look like her. and to be fair, she’s not making these products, just allowing them to be sold through her website.

But by linking her name to them, she is preying on the vulnerability — and bank accounts — of women. and although the site admits in small print that the claims have not been ‘evaluated’ by the U.S. Food and Drug administration, there’s no doubt Goop presents them as true.

tINa accuses Goop of using a ‘terribly deceptive marketing ploy’ to exploit women for financial gain. tickets to the organisation’s first ‘wellness’ summit in June this year cost up to £1,170!

Gwynnie doesn’t need the money, so why is she allowing herself to be used as a portal for what seems to amount to little more than 18th-century quackery?

the truth is Gwynnie looks good because, as she admits, she hardly drinks, seldom smokes, exercises frantically, avoids carbs and thinks a great meal out is a mung bean casserole with toasted tofu on top.

It’s got nothing to do with crystals — and the sooner we girls ignore Goop’s shameless claims about them, the better.