Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow’s unfortunately named life style brand, is having its first Health Summit on June 10th and we have so many questions. Like how are the $1500 tickets sold out already? Who exactly bought a $1500 dollar ticket to the Goop Health Summit? Are these the kind of people that steam their vaginas?
The event is promoted as a summit that will address everything from “gut imbalances to sexual health,” and will involve a market with clean beauty products, healthy food, and wellness goods. The tickets (The lowest tier of which is still $500) also include a gift bag with hundreds of dollars of Goop approved products. Although, considering the price of many of the products Paltrow recommends on the website, we can’t promise you that “$300 dollars worth of products” doesn’t mean one tiny jar of the diamond cream from Arrested Development. But in the words of Lindsay Bluth, “I can actually smear diamonds on my face, and it’s only $400 a tub! That’s like, what? A million diamonds for $400? A million f*cking diamonds!” Seems worth it.
Sure, it’s easy to pick on Gwyneth Paltrow and the Goop brand. So deliciously easy that it’s kind of cheap (unlike every item on the Goop website!). But the daughter of movie royalty seems so out of touch with reality at times, that it’s kind of impossible not to poke fun. Saying you’d rather smoke actual crack than eat spray cheese or including seven limes when doing the food stamp challenge makes you seem really far removed from regular people.
That being said, I think what I appreciate about Paltrow is that she seems like a genuinely nice, well-meaning person. Yes, she has no idea what it’s like to live in the real world, she’s never had to. But it’s also not her brand. Her brand is crazy, unproven opulence. And as hard as I roll my eyes, I kind of respect that she owns her life. And if other people want to spend $1500 dollars to share in that life….nope I couldn’t do it. THAT’S SO MUCH MONEY TO SPEND ON A ONE DAY HEALTH SUMMIT, GUYS, COME ON.
So we took a look at the weirdest events offered at the one day summit, and we have some genuine concerns and questions —- which we hope will be answered for us when we get to go to the event. Because while all of the Uproxx Life writers made fun of the different events, there was one thing we passionately agreed about: We totally want to go and see it for ourselves. The media requests were sent before the conversation was even rolling.
Those tickets to the Goop summit may be more money than my car is worth, but who knows how many jade eggs they’ll provide for me to stick in my vagina. It could be a million vagina eggs for $1500. And a million f*cking vagina eggs!? That doesn’t sound like so bad a deal.
The Offerings:
A foam roller workout with a “body whisperer.”
What is a body whisperer? I can only hope she’s similar to the dog whisperer and will teach me how to avoid urinating on the carpet and biting neighbor children (I really love to bite neighbor children).
I’m not opposed to a foam roller. It’s pretty simple. You roll it over sore muscles and it relieves some of the tension. A tennis ball does a similar thing. Or a massage. But I’m skeptical about paying an “expert” in foam rolling to give you a “work out.” It’s just not a particularly complicated piece of equipment. I mean, who out there can’t figure out how to roll something under his or her body? Were some of us trying to eat the foam roller or sword fight with it?
I want to know exactly what this body whisperer is going to show us that will be so revolutionary. Maybe if you roll it just right you can catch a glimpse of a “Sliding Doors” alternative timeline in which you didn’t spend $1500 dollars on a Goop Health Summit. That’d be nice.
An Aura photography session.
If you’re the kind of person who is still pretty sure mood rings work, then this seems like something you could get on board with. I don’t totally understand the way these work but apparently you put your hands on something that reads your electromagnetic energy and then through double exposure the camera adds your aura color to the shot.
Ultimately, I think this reads your aura in the same way snapchat is able to read that inside I have a dog nose and ears. It’s pretty silly. But it could be fun. Like if I was an aura photographer, the only thing that would bring me joy would be to pick one random person at every event. And when their photo came out scream and tell them to “get away, just get away from me. No one can help you.” Then I’d throw a completely black photo at them. “What’s attached to you…” I’d say trembling. “It cannot be undone.”
That seems like it would be a good time.
A hangover cure I.V. drip.
The Goop site recommends this station for anyone who hit the bottle a little too hard Friday night or needs an energy boost. The IV for a hangover cure is pretty trendy right now with places charging $150-250 a bag. But the problem is that there is no evidence that it helps in any way. Sure-people feel like it helps, but doctors warn that studies have shown that that’s way more likely to be the placebo effect than anything. And it rubs me the wrong way when people claim medical properties to something that most likely is bullshit. Will it hurt anything? I mean… probably not. But do you really want to stick things into your vein when drinking a couple of water bottles will have the exact same effect?
The adult goody bag.
I’m sorry but I don’t think you can label something as an “adult” goody bag if said goody bag doesn’t include some hard core porn and some kind of $15K dildo. So I can only assume that Goop’s goody bag is filled with such porn classics as “Iron Dick”, “The Royal Tit ‘n Bums”, and the classic: “Cockspeare, no glove.”
If that’s the case, then this seems pretty awesome as a gift. No problems with it.
The flower remedy station.
This is going to involve flower crowns, right? I am highly skeptical that this is anything more than a pretty craft project to make you feel like all the money you spent was worth it. (Spoiler alert: It was not). But if you really want something that will lift your spirits, you should google image “Gwyneth Paltrow Flower Crown.” You will not be disappointed.
Crystal Healing Therapy.
Honestly, I feel at least one of these workshops should be called Placebo Healing Therapy.
Crystal therapy works by drawing up the bad energy out of you and replacing it with good energy… I think. The problem is that there’s no evidence that getting sick has anything to do with “bad energy” and it seems kind of dangerous to suggest it does. Meditation is good for you. Feeling calm and centered in your life can’t hurt. But any of these things claiming to cure you of physical ailments (unless those things were psychosomatic in the first place) seems irresponsible.
All of these in good fun, are fine. And not everything Goop recommends is ridiculous, I’m sure. There’s power in connecting your physical and spiritual beings. Herbal and natural remedies can be great. And find me someone who doesn’t love the Royal Tenenbaums. You can’t. It’s DELIGHTFUL. But as far as buying into the whole brand, I’m going to stay firmly over here in my cynical bubble of dark, negative energy, eating pizza. And yes, I will die at a very young age while Paltrow, still looking 26 and gorgeous, lives forever. Honestly, I’m okay with that.
