Shove it, Goop

In a society that commodifies self-care, is it possible to value wellness in a way that doesn’t center capitalism?

Two words: vagina candle. I’d (maybe naïvely) assume that most of us are familiar with Gwenyth Paltrow’s wellness and lifestyle brand’s collaboration with fragrance company Heretic, which took the world by a very confused, slightly intrigued storm when it launched just over a year ago. “This Smells Like My Vagina,” Goop simply titles the candle’s scent, which they refer to as “funny, gorgeous, sexy, and beautifully unexpected.” While — we have to agree with the Goop team on this one — the idea of a candle that smells like Gwenyth Paltrow’s vagina is undoubtedly a bit funny, the fact that this item is one of many overpriced wellness products that Goop recommends to its audience is not so funny (and actually a bit problematic).

First of all, I want to make it clear that I am not trying to say Gwenyth Paltrow and her team are stating you must purchase this candle in order to achieve total physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. They are definitely not — that would be ludicrous, even for them. Rather, I am simply making the argument that this candle, along with the other expensive “wellness” products that Goop endorses, represents an exclusive, unrealistic idea of wellness that isn’t accessible.

Yes, Gwenyth Paltrow is an incredibly wealthy middle-aged white woman, and I’d assume that most of Goop’s followers fall into the same demographic. Despite this, I’d argue that Goop being one of the biggest names in modern-day wellness has the potential to be somewhat harmful to communities outside of this one.

A quick trip to Goop’s online storefront will show that some of the wellness products they put forward include a $200 vibrator, a $1,300 “rainbow mat” (?), and a $55 set of “love cards.” And it’s not just Goop; companies like Ritual, Noom, and Calm are raking in billions and billions of dollars from wellness products and services. If you have the resources to spend your money on wellness, go right ahead, but where do those of us who don’t and may never have these kinds of funds get our wellness? And what if we don’t want our wellness to be white-washed and commercialized?

The fact that there is a “wellness industry” in the first place exemplifies this, and shows how far we’ve strayed from what it actually means to “be well.” Communities outside of the ones that Goop or Ritual represent and target have been “doing” wellness that doesn’t center capitalism for centuries. For example, Indigenous Americans have been 18 harvesting and creating natural medicines from a plethora of different plants since long before colonialism infected the United States. Along with this, Ayuverda — a holistic system that came out of India over 3,000 years ago — strongly emphasizes the benefits of yoga and meditation (practices that have since been westernized and commodified).

This all goes to say that wellness has existed and been accomplished by a number of communities and cultures long before the term ‘wellness’ was even coined (definitely longer than a wellness industry that has accumulated over four trillion dollars existed and much longer than Goop’s 2008 inception). The white-washing and commercialization of wellness and self-care is not surprising, but it is unfortunate.

A “Goop-ified” idea of wellness appears to be at the forefront of modern American culture, and although the lifestyle that Goop expresses and recommends is accessible to upper-class white women, it by no means represents the majority of Americans. S

o, the question stands; is it possible to take care of ourselves and our well-beings in a way that doesn’t play into capitalistic ideals? Can we decolonize self-care? Is it realistic to stop comparing ourselves and our methods of care to ones that are idealized by society yet out of reach to so many of us? To be honest, I’m not sure, but I’d like to believe so. It’s cleary been done before, but I worry that wellness has become so intertwined with money that it could be impossible to remove from the sticky web capitalism has spun over the world.

For now, all I can recommend is trying to center yourself, not capitalism, in your self-care, and hopefully society will follow.