She’s the space cadet.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle site, Goop, endorsed wearable “healing” stickers purportedly made out of space-suit material — but it backed off the claim after getting called out by a NASA scientist.
It was just the latest Goop goof for the self-proclaimed lifestyle guru, who has been previously ridiculed for claiming health benefits from such loopy practices as vaginal steaming and lacing smoothies with “Sex Dust.”
Goop said the Body Vibes stickers were made with a carbon-based material used in NASA space suits and touted their supposed ability to lower stress and boost immunity.
“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,” Goop says in its article on the stickers, which cost up to $120 for a pack of 24.
“Body Vibes stickers (made with the same conductive carbon material NASA uses to line space suits so they can monitor an astronaut’s vitals during wear) come pre-programmed to an ideal frequency, allowing them to target imbalances.”
But the stickers stink of snake oil, said Mark Shelhamer, former chief scientist at NASA’s human research division.
“Wow. What a load of BS this is,” he told the technology-news site Gizmodo on Thursday.
Any claim that the stickers are made with carbon material from NASA space suits is likely false, he said, noting that the suits contain synthetic polymers, spandex and other materials, but not carbon.
“Not only is the whole premise like snake oil, the logic doesn’t even hold up,” he said.
Goop later backtracked, removing the reference to NASA space suits on its site and releasing a statement distancing itself from the product’s claims.
“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,” it read.
And Body Vibes itself later apologized, claiming in a statement to Gizmodo that it made the space-suit claim after it was “misinformed by a distributor about the material in question.”
Still, the company’s Web site claims the stickers, worn on the back or arms, are embedded with a “specific combination of bio-frequencies designed to enhance and activate particular targeted systems.”
“Try Mood Boost, Mental Focus or Energy with Chill, At The Beach, or Anti-Anxiety to balance the effects,” it says.