Gwyneth Paltrow is standing by her vagina candle.
The actress defended her decision to sell Goop’s controversial $75 “This Smells Like My Vagina” candle during her Saturday appearance at the 2025 Mindvalley Manifesting Summit in Los Angeles.
“That product is so fascinating because we were messing around with different scents one day. And I smelled something and I was like, ‘Oh, that smells like … you know,” she said onstage, per a clip shared on Instagram.
The idea began as a joke between Paltrow and Heretic perfumer Douglas Little, she shared.
“I was joking. And then [Douglas] was like, ‘Oh we should make that a candle and put it on the site,’” the Oscar winner explained, adding sarcastically that the idea “sounded like a winner.”
“All of a sudden, it was literally on the website,” Paltrow, 52, said. “And then we broke the Internet again. And then it took us a long time to live that one down.”
“But I kept it on the site because there is an aspect to women’s sexuality that I think we’re socialized to feel a lot of shame. And I sort of loved this kind of punk rock idea, ‘We are beautiful and we are awesome and go f–k yourself,’” she concluded.
The now-discontinued candle contained scents of geranium, citrusy bergamot, cedar absolutes, Damask rose and ambrette seed, and now sells for $400 on the resale market.
After the success of the original scent, Paltrow went on to introduce “This Smells Like My Orgasm” and “This Smells Like My Prenup.”
She decided to launch a similar product in 2022 called the “Hands Off My Vagina” candle.
That candle contained notes of coconut milk and Damascena roses mixed with raw vanilla, hinoki cypress and hints of toasted cacao “for added depth and sensuality.”
Launched in honor of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade that year, the brand donated $25 from the sale of each to the ACLU Foundation’s Reproductive Freedom Project.
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