Gwyneth Paltrow wants you to steam clean your vagina — but health experts think her latest lifestyle advice full of hot air.
On her GOOP website, the Oscar winner personally endorsed the Mugwort V-Steam procedure at Tikkun Spa in Santa Monica — a bit of TMI that’s also being slammed by experts.
"If you want to feel relaxed get a good massage — if you want to relax your vagina, have an orgasm,” said Dr. Jen Gunter, a California ob-gyn who specializes in vulvovaginal disorders.
"Mugwort or wormwood ... can't possibly balance any reproductive hormones, regulate your menstrual cycle, treat depression, or cure infertility," Gunter added in a blog post.
Mugwort, a popular herb in Asian medicine, is thought to cleanse the body, boost energy, neutralize stomach pain, regulate periods, and even improve mental health.
And such private parts treatment has been around for 1,500 years and was used on Chinese emperors. But we know better today.
"I would never tell anybody to do this because the potential risks are much higher than the potential benefits,” Dr. Amos Grunebaum, an ob-gyn at New York Presbyterian Hospital, told the Daily News.
Worst case scenario? Death. Grunebaum told the News that there have been cases of women dying after filling their vagina with water or air pressure.
There is no hard research on Paltrow’s vagina steaming, but Grunebaum said there is evidence that douching is bad for women's health because it messes with normal bacteria, you know, down there.
Steam that gets into the uterus may also migrate to the fallopian tubes, which could result in a miscarriage, or the abdominal cavity, which could seriously sicken the patient.
Tikkun's owner Niki Han Schwarz defended her service as completely safe.
"The last thing I want to do is harm anybody," said Schwarz, who said vaginal steam baths helped her get pregnant in her 40s.
That part of the service wasn’t on Paltrow’s mind when she praised the procedure, which costs $50 for 30 minutes.
"You sit on what is essentially a mini-throne, and a combination of infrared and mugwort steam cleanses your uterus, et al.," Paltrow, 42, wrote on GOOP, touting the procedure’s cleansing, “energetic release,” and hormonal balance.
Guys can take part too, except the V-steam for them goes by a different name — the A-steam — and the solution travels up a different orifice.
No word on if Paltrow's ex Chris Martin ever joined her for a steam, but the star did encourage the procedure for everyone.
"If you're in LA, you have to do it," she wrote.
It may not be limited to Los Angeles pretty soon. After Paltrow’s GOOP post went up, Schwarz’s vagina steamer was booked solid into the weekend.
This isn't the first time that the Goop founder has made some outrageous pushes on her site.
The ingredients in her anti brain-fog smoothie read like something out of a Woodstock hippie's medicine cabinet: "Brain dust increases mental flow, maca delivers abundant energy, mental stamina, and an elevated mood, and the vanilla mushroom protein relieves stress while nourishing the heart and spirit."
Trying to detox? Here's Gwynnie's advice: "Think about kicking the week off with a colonic — they definitely get things going." They're also highly criticized by the medical communuity.
Even though no hangover remedy has ever been proven to work, Paltrow swears by a beverage called Mercy: "This stuff is so good that I went ahead and invested in the company," she wrote. "You can drink it alone or mix it with alcohol to create a hangover preventing cocktail." We'll pass.
In addition to Tikkun, Paltrow also loves Mii Amo Spa in Sedona, Ariz. "The menu offers everything from psychic massage to a Sedona clay wrap, to reiki and lymphatic drainage. Meanwhile, spiritual treatments include meditation, hypnosis, and past life regression. It’s like three years of therapy in three days," she writes.