When seeking beauty advice, it is not unreasonable to seek out people who are already beautiful to see how they do it. I mean, other than by having parents who “mated well,” to borrow the words of the inimitable Carrie Fisher.
It can become unreasonable, however, when you seek out those beauty tips from Gwyneth Paltrow, who is quite beautiful but also quite ridiculous when it comes to dispensing her beauty advice. Everyone knows her GOOP newsletter is the go-to spot for expensive and bizarre beauty treatments picked up from her trots across the globe.
This month, she took to Redbook magazine to talk about her new cosmetics line, the cocktail of epsom salts and essential oils she pours into her bath, and something called dry-brushing:
RB: What makes dry brushing so good? And what is it?
GP: It's an amazing way to exfoliate your body. You take the dry brush and, starting at your feet and working up, sweep it all over your body in light, firm strokes, always brushing toward your heart. It's fantastic for circulation and it helps smooth cellulite. I do it every night before I get in the bath.
Like Gwyneth, I’m a mom of two kids, so I’m kind of hung up on the fact that she has the time to take a whole bath every night. I usually only manage to squeeze in a prison shower after the kids are in bed and before I collapse, so this brush-and-bathe routine is really amazing to me.
I’m sure there is no harm in brushing your ass every night before bed, and it’s certainly cheaper than laser therapy for cellulite (the brush Gwynnie uses is only $15). However, I’m also not convinced that this isn’t something Gwyneth made up to get her kids to leave her alone so she can basically scratch her own back for a while. If that’s what this is, she’s a genius.
