We are in some\nserious Goop now. I am a big Netflix fan, and while they have had\nsome of my favorite shows, they often have serious misses. The Goop\nLab is not so much a miss as a total medicine show infomercial con\njob. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember when porn\nstar Jenna Jameson made her retirement speech at the AVN awards and\nsaid \u201cI will never spread my legs for this industry again.\u201d Never\na fan of Jameson, I thought, okay, you are giving up the one thing\nyou are good at. I only say that because she had a lot of fans. I\nnever understood her appeal. Gwyneth Paltrow is the woman behind\nGoop, and she has said that she is giving up acting to focus on this.\nAgain, I thought, you are giving up the one thing you are good at.\nThe Goop Lab and the whole Goop concept is not something she is good\nat, unless you find some good in defrauding people and selling them\nproducts that can harm their health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are better\nexperts than I who have gone after Gwyneth’s Goop, the best being Dr.\nJen Gunter<\/a>, author of the Vagina Bible<\/em> (See our review\nhere<\/a>).\nShe explains in a number of blog entires why Goop products can be\ndangerous to your sexual health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you just want a\nquick reason why Goop should be avoided, consider that one of their\nlatest entries is This Smells Like My Vagina<\/em> candle. According\nto the site, it has a funny, gorgeous, sexy, and beautifully\nunexpected scent. I bet. As to whose vagina it smells like, no, it is\nnot meant to smell specifically like Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina, even\nthough every vagina smells different, and that can change based on a\nnumber of factors. Gwyneth just thought that it smelled like vagina.\nIt is composed of \u201cgeranium, citrusy bergamot, and cedar absolutes\njuxtaposed with damask rose and ambrette seed\u201d. I don’t think\nanyone’s vagina smells like that, and even if they did, a $75 vagina\ncandle makes absolutely no sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gwynneth is big into\nwoo. By that, I mean selling products with no scientific support for\ntheir efficaciousness. Goop has made her hundreds of millions of\ndollars. The products go way beyond just sexual products and include\nsuch controversial and potentially dangerous products as detoxers and\nenergy healers. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their Jade eggs are\ndownright dangerous and could lead to toxic shock, according to\nexperts. That got them sued by the State of California. They also\nhave promoted the questionable vaginal steaming. I have seen no\nevidence that there is any reason to steam your vagina. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the plus side,\nthere are only six episodes. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Episode 1<\/strong>\npromotes psychedelics for healing despite the serious potential side\neffects. They go to Jamaica to trip on mushrooms. The only thing I\nknow about this from my time in Jamaica was to never mix the\nmushrooms with the brownies. A guy did that and was in his bed for 2\ndays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Episode 2<\/strong>\ndeals with cold shocking and breathing techniques. Outside of my\nexpertise but color me skeptical. It is basically hyperventilating,\nwhich can be useful in some life threatening emergencies. Here they\ndo a cold plunge and are able to get out because of the Wim Hof\nMethod. I guess they are unfamiliar with polar bear plunges involving\npeople unfamiliar with Wim Hof and his breathing technique. They get\nout just fine. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Episode 3<\/strong> is\nthe vagina\/orgasm episode. Surprisingly, and probably thanks to the\npresence of highly respected sex expert Betty Dodson, this is one of\nthe most scientifically sound episodes. I say surprising because\nGwyneth has become best known for her Goop vagina pseudoscience,\nwhich is why she may have toned things down a bit on this segment. No\njade eggs or vaginal steaming is mentioned. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the plus side,\nthey do promote vulva acceptance (despite the dangerous things they\nsuggest on their site that you do to your vagina). They put on\ndisplay actual vulvas, depicting the great diversity between\ndifferent vulvas. She really is a sex expert, worth listening to, and\nshe had to correct Gwyneth who seemed not to know the difference\nbetween a vagina and a vulva (although that could have been staged\nfor theatrical effect). \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, I was\ndisappointed that Dodson used the show to promote her $140 Barbell\nfor kegel exercises., which is a very Goopy price point Yes, kegel\nexercises do help strengthen muscles and give the vagina better grip\nstrength, but there is absolutely no reason to spend that much money\non a device that should cost a fraction of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I also liked that\nthey showed an actual female orgasm. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Episode four\n<\/strong>promotes the dangerous and painful vampire facials. They have\nbeen linked to at least two cases of HIV. The procedure does not have\nFDA approval for cosmetic purposes, and is currently completely\nunregulated. Other than giving you a bloody face, there is no\nevidence that it actually makes you look younger. It does not help\nthat Gwyneth looks basically the same after her expensive treatment. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n They also wade into\nthe treacherous waters of diet changes and how they effect aging.\nThey focus on the concept of biological age (versus chronological\nage), which has been controversial for many years. There is no agreed\nupon method of measuring biological age, so there is also no way to\nnow if a treatment is actually reversing your biological age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Episode 5<\/strong>\nfocuses on \u201cenergy\u201d healing. This is an unmeasurable and in my\nview totally imaginary force. I believe that when you remove the\nplacebo effect, the so-called results go away. The only way to really\ntest it is a double blind placebo controlled study. Unfortunately,\nthat is impossible to do with energy healing. One \u201cexpert\u201d on\nthe show claimed \u201cIf you just change the frequency of vibration of\nthe body itself, it changes the way the cells regrow, it changes the\nway the sensory system processes.\u201d There is nothing in that\nsentence that is even remotely scientific. When anyone starts talking\nabout quantum physics and how it can be used for large scale effects\nsuch as healing, you know they are full of it. The quantum world is\nweird and spooky, but those effects only work at the quantum level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Episode six<\/strong>\nfocuses on psychic energy. I do not see anyone who was on the show\nwinning James Randi’s million dollar reward for a genuine\ndemonstration of psychic abilities under test conditions. There is\nnothing here that has not been debunked countless times. I could\nwrite a very long article on the history of spiritualistic mediums\nand fraud (with a lot of medium\/sitter sexual shenanigans). They\nbring on medium Laura Lynn Jackson claiming that psychic powers have\nbeen proven scientifically by a quadruple-blind study. There are\nlots of ways that psychics cheat. I would happily test Jackson, with\nadvice from a trained mentalist magician, such as James Randi, but\nshe would fail. They always fail. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n The only episode\nworth watching is the vagina episode. As to buying things from Goop,\neven products that are effective are scandalously over-priced. I\nwould take my business elsewhere. There is one bit of advice on the\nshow that I would take to the bank. At the beginning of each episode,\nyou are informed: \u201cThe following series is designed to entertain\nand inform \u2013 not to provide medical advice. You should always\nconsult your doctor when it comes to your personal health, or before\nyou start any treatment\u201d. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We are in some serious Goop now. I am a big Netflix fan, and while they have had some of my favorite shows, they often have serious misses. The Goop…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3842"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3844,"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842\/revisions\/3844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sexinreview.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}