Actor and purveyor of jade eggs, Gwyneth Paltrow visited ABC's “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Monday to chat about her lifestyle brand Goop and her new Netflix show, “The Goop Lab.”
Things got real weird after Kimmel decided to bust out one of Goop’s best selling products — a $75 candle named “This Smells Like My Vagina” — and light it … right in front of Paltrow … for whom the candle is named … so the two could discuss … its scent.
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“So they didn’t do any, like, testing or anything like that to try to [find out what your vagina smells like]?” Kimmel said jokingly, bringing the lit candle up to his nose and taking a sniff.
“It smells nice … It smells a little bit masculine, really,” he continued, choosing his words carefully on national TV. “Like, woody — I dunno.”
Ultimately, Kimmel alluded that the fragrance didn’t actually smell like anything resembling a vagina.
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“Well, it’s not really supposed to smell like a vagina,” Paltrow began to explain.
“Oh,” Kimmel said confused and slightly disappointed. “That is false advertising then.”
But Paltrow had a ready answer to explain the sentiment behind the name.
“I think a lot of women have grown up with a certain degree of shame or embarrassment around this part. So, we’re like ‘Yo!’” Paltrow said, picking up the candle and plopping it back down on Kimmel’s desk as if to say, Yo, girl, be proud of your vagina that smells all masculine and woody.
Paltrow also explained the origin story of her candle’s name earlier in the interview.
According to Paltrow, she and a friend of hers who makes candles for Goop were smelling different fragrances when Paltrow sniffed one and made a joke that it smelled like her vagina.
“But then I was like, ‘Wouldn’t that be cool if somebody actually had the guts to do that [and put that name on a candle]?’” she said. “What a punk-rock, feminist statement, to have that on your table.”
“And then [my friend] made it,” Paltrow continued. “I thought he just made me one as a joke, but then the next thing I knew, it was on my website.”
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HuffPost considered reaching out to notable punk rocker Joan Jett and feminist Gloria Steinem to gauge whether they thought buying an outrageously expensive candle from a brand that makes money off of women’s insecurities was indeed a punk-rock or feminist act.
But we already knew the answer and didn’t want to bother them.
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