Some stories demand a double-take. Private Function’s latest vinyl release is one of them—though, in this case, you may also want to take a cautious sniff. According to Far Out Magazine, the Melbourne-based punk band has unveiled a vinyl variant that doesn’t just play music, it wafts an aroma inspired by Gwyneth Paltrow’s (in)famous candle: “This Smells Like My Vagina.”

The Backstory: Goop’s Candle and Classist Scents

As chronicled in both Far Out and The Music, the genesis of this scented media oddity stretches back to 2020. That was the year Paltrow’s Goop brand introduced a candle with the now-infamous moniker. The scent—created with components like bergamot, geranium, cedar, and ambrette seed, as the outlets note—caused a minor internet meltdown before promptly selling out. Prices have since skyrocketed, with the candle reportedly fetching over $700 on resale markets.

Private Function’s guitarist, Lauren Hester, relays in their Instagram video (covered by both outlets) that the band’s initial reaction was an unrequited consumer longing for the candle, followed by bemusement at its “classist” exclusivity. As detailed in The Music, Hester underscored this absurdity: “$700 USD dollars to smell Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina is quite frankly classist, and we at Private Function think that every working-class person deserves to have access to the smell 24 hours a day.”

From Candle to Vinyl: Punk Perfume for the Masses

Rather than accept olfactory defeat, the band took direct action. The Music describes how Private Function contacted a French perfumier and supplied the same scent ingredients famously listed on the Goop candle, resulting in a scratch-and-sniff edition of their new album—fittingly named the “Goopy” variant. The plan remained under wraps until nearly a month after fans had already ordered it, enhancing the mystique (and perhaps the risk factor) for collectors everywhere.

The pink wax record, as Far Out highlights, was quickly snapped up and is now, unsurprisingly, sold out. Those who missed out will have to contend with lingering curiosity—or with one of the band’s other, less provocative, album variants.

From Powder to Pee to Paltrow

If this all sounds oddly on-brand for Private Function, that’s because it is. The Music documents that in 2020 they released Whose Line Is It Anyway? as a limited edition record with bags of mysterious white powder inside. They doubled down in 2022 with 370HSSV 0773H, a liquid-filled LP containing the band’s own urine—infamously banned in South Australia for violating gambling laws. The outlets collectively underscore the group’s commitment to escalating their vinyl stunts, describing a trajectory where shock and sardonic humor go hand in sniffable hand.

There’s perhaps an archivist somewhere wincing at the preservation challenges this represents—a vinyl pressed with bodily fluids offers unique cataloguing difficulties, to say the least. Maybe in a decade or two, collectors will compare notes on whether the “Goopy” aroma aged with grace or simply withered like an overused scratch-n-sniff sticker.

Whose Satire Is It Anyway?

What did Gwyneth Paltrow think of all this? According to Far Out Magazine, she recently defended her own scented candle at a public event, explaining it began as a private joke about scents and quickly morphed into a minor cultural moment. She described her move as “punk rock,” an attitude Private Function anticipated in their own launch video, predicting—and perhaps parodying—the self-aware bravado at play.

The album’s Goopy variant sold out before fans knew exactly what they were getting, as The Music points out, which might suggest that anticipation—or plain mischief—outweighs even the strangest product descriptions. Are we looking at a new model for crowdfunding: “order first, learn the surreal specifics later”?

The Aroma of Oddity

Private Function’s scented release oddly fits the mood of contemporary punk: part anti-capitalist jest, part gleeful lampooning of consumer exclusivity. The band insists everyone deserves an affordable whiff of pop-culture’s weirdest moments, making their “scratch-and-sniff” edition a democratic artifact of a particularly pungent era. Whether it’s sincere performance art, a very elaborate joke, or some collision of both, the result invites questions: Is punk dead, or does it just smell different now?

As for what the actual aroma resembles, that’s a matter of perfumery and bold marketing claims. For now, the Goopy variant will live in legend, until future collectors gather to compare notes over albums that don’t just play, but provoke—and perhaps perfuse.

Is this the natural (or unnatural) endpoint for novelty records, or just another strange turn in an endlessly weird timeline? However you come down, Private Function’s catalog continues to ask: why just hear your music, when you can smell it too?