Actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand Goop is under fire for misrepresenting the materials contained in one of its products.
The wellness website is selling $120 “Body Vibes” stickers said to be made from “NASA spacesuit material” and meant to “rebalance energy frequency in our bodies.”
“Human bodies operate at an ideal energetic frequency, but everyday stresses and anxiety can throw off our internal balance, depleting our energy reserves and weakening our immune systems,” Paltrow’s website said in a blog post praising the stickers. “Body Vibes stickers come pre-programmed to an ideal frequency, allowing them to target imbalances.”
However, the stickers are “BS,” according Mark Shelhamer, former chief scientist at NASA’s human research division.
“Wow. What a load of BS this is,” Shelhamer told tech website Gizmodo.
Shelhamer shutdown the claim that Goop’s stickers contain carbon material from NASA spacesuits.
“Not only is the whole premise like snake oil, the logic doesn’t even hold up,” Shelhamer said. “If they promote healing, why do they leave marks on the skin when they are removed?”
A spokesperson for NASA told People magazine they “do not line their spacesuits with conductive carbon material.”
Goop has since removed any mention of the stickers containing the NASA material from its website. The company also issued a statement to People.
“As we have always explained, advice and recommendations included on goop are not formal endorsements and the opinions expressed by the experts and companies we profile do not necessarily represent the views of goop,” Goop said. “Based on the statement from NASA, we’ve gone back to the company to inquire about the claim and removed the claim from our site until we get additional verification.”
Body Vibes issued a statement apologizing to NASA for mischaracterizing their product.
“We apologize to NASA, Goop, our customers and our fans for this communication error. We never intended to mislead anyone. We have learned that our engineer was misinformed by a distributor about the material in question, which was purchased for its unique specifications,” the statement read. “We regret not doing our due diligence before including the distributor’s information in the story of our product. However, the origins of the material do not anyway impact the efficacy of our product. Body Vibes remains committed to offering a holistic lifestyle tool and we stand by the quality and effectiveness of our product.”
Paltrow has faced fire in the past for sharing cookbooks that include incomplete cooking instructions that could lead to increased risk of food poisoning.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson