Newly divorced steamed-vagina-haver Gwyneth Paltrow is talking again about steamin’ up your lady parts. Gwyneth’s Goop site posted their first (and only) story about vagina-steaming back in January 2015, and ever since then, it’s been something a long-standing Goop joke. I mention it because Gwyneth references V-steaming in her new interview with New York Magazine. The whole piece is worth a read, just because Gwyneth’s default setting is always set to “believe whatever the $1000-an-hour healers tell her.” There’s a lengthy conversation about Eastern medicine versus Western medicine, but I thought the most interesting part was where Gwyneth basically shrugs off the idea that her focus on expensive, “clean” makeup and vague “wellness” programs are only for the wealthy. Oh, and Gwyneth takes credit for making yoga cool. And dieting, and juices. She made it cool to talk about wellness, people. Some highlights:

How she defines wellness: “It’s an interesting question, because there’s a “wellness movement” people are talking about. For example, Target has a new wellness mandate. The idea is definitely in the Zeitgeist. In the most broad term, it’s this idea that each individual is striving towards a better-feeling version of their physical life. Wellness is the movement towards health, whatever that means to you. [In science,] there are many ideas about medicine, and so many ways of achieving health with Western and Eastern medicine. Honestly, when it comes down to it, it’s very individual. It’s about what each person is hoping to achieve in their next level of health. It’s looking after yourself, being mindful about how you want to feel, and what you can do to achieve that end.

When she started using the word “wellness”: “I don’t know. We’ve talked a lot about health and wellness at Goop. I’ve always been interested in alternative ways of achieving this elusive wellness. I’ve been very experimental and I’ve tried all kinds of modalities, diets, and juices. I kind of like being the guinea pig for it all. I remember when I started doing yoga 20 years ago, and people thought I was super weird and didn’t know what I was doing. It’s the same way with organic food or acupuncture. I was always the one saying “Hey, this is cool,” and people being like, “You’re super weird.” And now, yoga is … [Gestures big]. I’ve always been cutting the path in the exploration of how to live a long, healthy life.”

What she can say to people to convince them of “clean beauty”: “I feel like it’s not my job to try to convince. When people start to educate themselves people tend to migrate to cleaner products — that’s what I’ve experienced. I was doing conventional products for my whole life. Then I started mixing it with clean. It was only really recently where I said, “Okay, that’s it.” I read the last piece of research and I was like, I’m out….Yes [I do clean beauty], except for hair. Hair I find hard, but for the most part I’m pretty clean. My kind of vanity is clean.”

Whether there’s a luxury aspect to the clean-beauty/wellness conversation: “Um — I haven’t really thought about it. Across all nontoxic products, there are all different kinds of price points. From the supply-chain standpoint, the more that nontoxic ingredients are available and made in bulk, the prices will go down. There’s always a luxury and mass market for anything and everything.”

Whether she laughs at herself when she tries out new things: “Oh, totally. The first time I tried v-steaming, I was like, This is insane. My friend Ben brought me and I was like, “You are out of your f–king mind. What is this?” But then by the end of it I was like, “This is so great.” Then I start to do research, and it’s been in Korean medicine for thousands of years and there are real healing properties. If I find benefit to it and it’s getting a lot of page views, it’s a win-win.”

[From New York Magazine]

While I think Gwyneth could and maybe should get credit for destigmatizing some of the diets and fitness crazes that would eventually blow up, I also think she’s humblebragging when she’s like “I made it cool, yo!” Those classes and diets existed before Gwyneth, she just promoted them. She was a high-profile person and she started following fads just as they were becoming fads. That’s what I always think of Gwyneth – she’s a person who follows fads. If you tell her about some experimental new diet or fitness craze, she’ll try it, co-opt it and claim she started it and that she made it cool. As for Gwyneth shrugging off the conversation about the price of wellness… yeah. Gwyneth’s idea of wellness and clean-living is only for rich women who can afford it.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.