Gwyneth Paltrow is on a mission to turn everyone's beauty routine green. She's done skincare. She's done makeup. But, one frontier she had yet to conquer was fragrance, one of the notoriously more difficult products to swap out for organic alternatives. Gwyneth, who at one point admitted her "wardrobe of fragrances" included 50 options (and was also once the face of a perfume), recently came to terms with the fact that there's a lot of mystery hiding in the scents she knew and loved.
"Fragrance which I've used up to this point is actually really at best not transparent at all and at worst very toxic," she tells ELLE.com, pointing out that the ingredient label "fragrance" can be used to hide a cocktail of proprietary, "endocrine-disrupting chemicals" messing up your hormones. Unsatisfied with having to rely on just patchouli at the health food store, she used her goop powers to create her own elevated take on a "sophisticated, complex, beautiful, and also completely non-harmful fragrance."
Today, goop introduces Edition 01 fragrance ($165) and candle ($72), the first of what will be a series of fragrances inspired by the four seasons. First up: Winter. Why? "I like the coziness of winter, and the family time that comes with it," Paltrow explains, "Everyone is inside and together and curled up on sofas reading."
To that end, she worked with nose Douglas Little to craft a smoky, layered mix of cypress, frankincense, labandum, vanilla, clove leaf, juniper, and styrax tree bark, all of which she hopes will make you "recall sitting by the fire place in a library." She didn't hint about what future goop fragrances will smell like, but did disclose which smell she curiously can't stand, "Other people would think it's a good scent," she divulged, "I don't like things that are heavily citrusy. Like kind of lime-y, citrus scents."
Paltrow muses that the fragrance is not just about smelling nice, but a "wholistic" experience. "One of the most amazing things about all these barks and herbs and things that grow in nature is they do all have, from the mystical point of view, healing properties," she says. Each ingredient promises a range of effects, from aphrodisiac properties to aiding meditation, to balancing depression, to "bringing inner peace." It's basically therapy in a bottle.
As for how Paltrow wears her fragrance, she spritzes it twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, she sprays it on her left wrist then rubs it on her right and behind her ears. She's a big candle fiend, too, and always lights them in her home everyday "an hour before sunset." "It's part of my evening ritual, having a smell in the house that's warming. I like to have a demarcation between the day and the nighttime, so I'll light some candles, have a glass of wine, and I always have a bath." Her mornings, however, aren't nearly as luxurious, "I'm just throwing coffee down my throat and trying to get the kids out the door on time."
Fragrances are personal and if you've already found your "signature" chances are, you'll be skeptical about Paltrow's new launch. Hear her out, "I really believe that women need to understand what is being put in their beauty products and their personal care products," she says, "Every woman deserves to have beauty products that are incredible, luxurious, have amazing efficacy whether skincare, bodycare, haircare, and fragrance. I want to be wearing something that's good for me." Don't you?
Sign up for early access to the goop fragrance launch here. Fragrance launches November 15.
