Five years ago, in March 2019, Kourtney Kardashian Barker finally found her “thing” when she launched her lifestyle website, Poosh. Given that it was a lifestyle website started by a rich lady from a famous family and had a funny name with double Os, Poosh was immediately compared to Gwyneth Paltrow’s website and brand, Goop. It was labeled a “ripoff” or referred to as “Goop-lite.” The websites have similar layouts too.
For her part, Gwyneth surprisingly seemed to take it in stride, and in 2022, she and Kourt teamed up to do a little merch crossover. The result was a $75 candle called “This Smells Like My Pooshy,” a play on Goop’s famous “This Smells Like My Vagina” candle. Really, the name of that crossover candle is so brilliant and hilarious. It’s not $75 brilliant, but I truly appreciate the pun. The Goopster (I will not even attempt to give Kourtney a similar nickname lol) is now busy promoting her new app, Moments of Space. In an interview with People, she brought up how sh–ty she thought it was when people labeled Poosh as a Goop ripoff.
As Kourtney Kardashian Barker’s Poosh launched in 2019, it immediately drew comparisons to the Oscar winner’s own lifestyle brand, which launched nearly 11 years prior. But that criticism didn’t sit right with Paltrow.
“I was so upset when Poosh was launched and people were like, ‘This is a ripoff of Goop,’” the businesswoman, 51, tells PEOPLE exclusively while discussing the Moments of Space app. “I was like, this is so awful, and trying to pit us against one another, which is so crazy.”
Paltrow says the criticism Kardashian Barker’s Poosh received made her “so excited to do the candle” collaboration, dubbed “This Smells Like My Pooshy.”
“I thought it was hilarious,” she says.
For Paltrow, it’s of the utmost importance that women in business come together rather than see each other as competition.
“The world is better and stronger when women are in cahoots with one another,” she adds. “I feel like the patriarchy does this thing to us where they make us feel scarcity and that there’s not enough for all of us to do our thing. And it’s so detrimental.”
Goop has become a part of the pop culture zeitgeist. From its viral launches to its often-criticized wellness advice, the brand has remained a part of the conversation while climbing to new heights of success.
“In the 15 years since I founded the company, and I think unfortunately you’ve seen a lot of companies who started either at the same time or after us, haven’t found that longevity or haven’t found that fit in the market,” she says. “I feel like we just stay really true to ourselves and then we just keep going and keep growing somehow.”
Among its “very exciting” new launches is its more affordable Good.Clean.Goop. line at Target. “We really over-delivered on that product and it’s at such a great price point. I’m very proud of that,” she shares.
Silly plebs. Don’t you know that Goop and Poosh aren’t in competition with each other? One was founded to rip off bored rich white ladies while the other is geared towards regular women with expendable cash! Duh. Poosh’s logo is in all caps while Goop goes hipster with an all lowercase serif font. They’re clearly very different websites that happen to cover similar topics and sell similar types of products. Obviously. But jokes aside, it isn’t cool to pit women against each other. Poke fun at the ridiculous things they promote or sell, but you don’t have to put them in competition with each other. I am surprised that it took Goop this long to jump on the Target bandwagon, though. Expanding to the Tar-jay crowd seemed like a no-brainer.
Photos credit: IMAGO/Faye Sadou / Avalon and via Instagram and screenshots