Let’s Make Fun of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Annual GOOP Gift Guide Together!

This year, we lost a shining beacon in the world of Blogs We Love to Hate. Preserve, Blake Lively’s ill-fated lifestyle and e-commerce site, shuttered after only one year. We didn’t even get to see a gift guide! But all’s not lost: We’ve still got GOOP. And GOOP (this is Gwyneth Paltrow’s online lifestyle venture, if you haven’t yet been blessed to know it) is majorly stepping things up now.

It’s almost as if Gwyneth, fresh from toasting Preserve’s demise with organic macrobiotic fresh-cut lilac nutmeg juice made by baby angels, sensed our need for absolutely insane guidance. So she’s provided us with her annual GOOP Holiday Guide, and just as expected, it brims with weird things that are very expensive. I like to think of it as a glimpse into the Christmas morning of the one-percent. While we open slippers from Kohl’s, they open up 18K-gold spatulas. Let us dig right in, shall we? It’ll be a fun ride. 

Okay, so there are 11 categories in Gwyneth’s gift guide, arranged by giftee types, like the “Centered Soul,” the “Wanderer,” the “Littles” (I assume this is a weird term for kids, sort of like ‘conscious uncoupling’ is a weird term for divorce). Most of the low-priced items are in the beauty category, like this $14 pack of ‘body soak,’ which is sort of like fancy bubble bath. It is good for one soak. So, a $14 bath. Okay.

There’s also a $24 carry-on cocktail kit. This includes ingredients for three classic cocktails and tiny bar tools so that you can make fancy drinks on an airplane. Let us pause to imagine the type of person who would pull out a dollhouse-size jigger to make a Moscow Mule on a flight. Do you want to sit next to this person? No. This is a bad gift.)

And then we start to edge into crazy-town. Here’s a bottle of dew for $67. (To be fair, it’s not normal outside-on-the-grass dew. It’s antioxidant dew and you spray it on your face to be beautiful.)

Here, we creep further into insanity. They recommend gifting a $244 toothpaste squeezer, because why squeeze out the last sad remnants of Crest with your fingers when you can squeeze them out with this?

Then GOOP unleashes the full-on crazy. Here, an $820 incense burner. Sure, why not?

Here’s another idea: Sneak into your giftee’s house, steal his/her favorite item on earth and ship it to New York! When s/he freaks out, play dumb, because you’ve secretly sent it off to be photographed by a professional photographer whose time and effort costs $1,200. (Don’t worry; they’ll get their crap back in a month. And they’ll have a fancy professional framed photo of it, too.)

There’s also a $260 unitard. It’s scary-looking. The description implies that you wear it to work out. Please don’t do this.

A robe is a great gift. A robe that costs $418 is … well, maybe that’s normal to you. I don’t know your life. It’s normal to GOOP. Let’s move on.

If you didn’t cough up your breakfast at the price of the robe, then this gift is probably for you: a $750 cashmere scarf. It’s very large – like, blanket-size – so maybe you can also use it as a comforter.

And check out the earrings below! Back in my day, one could get them at Claire’s for $4.50. Now you can get them on GOOP for $1,050! Happy holidays.

Here’s where Gwyneth’s gift guide devolves into creepiness. The description for a pair of $729 pair of binoculars reads: “For spying on your neighbors.” But, on second thought, Gwyneth probably lives next door to George Clooney and Brad Pitt, and I’d probably want to spy on them, too. Binoculars for everyone!

But what about necessities, you say? Don’t worry. GOOP’s got you covered. Behold, this $965 set of toilet paper and tissue, which they say will last nine months. ARE YOU EVEN KIDDING ME WITH THIS.

And let’s round things off with a handy pair of gold-plated dumbbells. They are $125,000. Sure, it’s more than your gym membership (like, your lifelong gym membership), but can you really put a price on perfectly toned biceps? You cannot. 

Inspired to start gift-buying? Go here for the full list.