Goops!

NASA Fact-Checks Goop Over Wearable Body Stickers

The claim involved the lining of spacesuits.
Image may contain Gwyneth Paltrow Human Person Astronaut and Roy Rogers
Left, from Nasa/Getty Images; Right, by Benjamin Lozovsky/BFA/REX/Shutterstock.

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Goop! Gwyneth Paltrow’s magical health-and-lifestyle Web site promises that if you just excavate your colon with rainbow beams weekly, you’ll live the same life as a beautifully toned, charmed, Oscar-winning actress with a staff of at least 20 churning out content. It would be your best life, really. You’d sleep in a yurt that costs more than a month’s rent. Moon Juice Sex Dust, which you’d stir into a beverage, “is a lusty edible formula alchemized to ignite and excite sexy energy in and out of the bedroom.” And, for the final frontier of products in the Goop-iverse, you’d don stickers made out of the same material as NASA spacesuit lining—or so the site was claiming until Gizmodo decided to do a little debunking.

Prior to the site’s digging, Goop was selling “wearable stickers that promote healing” by a company called Body Vibes, and in the description it said (per Gizmodo) that the patches were “made with the same conductive carbon material NASA uses to line space suits so they can monitor an astronaut’s vitals during wear.” The stickers supposedly “rebalance the energy frequency in our bodies,” just like spacesuits protect the valiant astronauts who journey into the cosmos and most likely don’t worry about the energy frequency in their bodies while they’re there, what with trying to protect themselves from the lack of atmosphere and all. (Vanity Fair has reached out to Body Vibes for comment.)

NASA isn’t standing behind that claim for one second. A representative for the administration told Vanity Fair that NASA “does not line its spacesuits with conductive carbon material.” When Gizmodo contacted Richard Eaton, the founder of AlphaBioCentrix, a biotech company behind products that claim to balance the body’s energy, he gave the following statement:

“Without going into a long explanation about the research and development of this technology, it comes down to this: I found a way to tap into the human body’s bio-frequency, which the body is receptive to outside energy signatures. Most of the research that has been collected is confidential and is held as company private information.”

Mark Shelhamer, former chief scientist at NASA’s human research division, was all too happy to tell Gizmodo, “Wow, what a load of B.S. this is,” in response to Eaton’s palaver.

Goop has since removed the NASA spacesuit claim from the stickers’ product description on the site. In a statement provided to Vanity Fair, the company said:

“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. Our content is meant to highlight unique products and offerings, find open-minded alternatives, and encourage conversation. We constantly strive to improve our site for our readers, and are continuing to improve our processes for evaluating the products and companies featured. 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.”

NASA’s spokesperson told Vanity Fair that no one from Goop has been in contact with them. In the meantime, this whole dust-up has at least saved you $120 on a pack of 24 stickers.

Correction: A previous version of this article misidentified Mark Shelhamer as a representative for NASA.