One of the most memorable scenes in the 2001 classic Legally Blonde features Elle Woods, played by Reese Witherspoon, lying in bed after a bad breakup. Her sorority sisters walk in on her eating bonbons and watching a soap opera. When a man onscreen says, “I love you,” Elle throws the chocolates at the TV in a burst of anger.
Breakups suck; you know that without me telling you. The narrative around getting over them has been the same — or basically the same — since I first saw Elle throw the box of chocolates at her TV. For women, breakup aftermaths have several (stereotypical) staples: crying, cursing the ex, and Ben & Jerrys. (There’s even a book called the Smart Girl’s Breakup Buddy that has the image of a pint of ice cream on the cover.)
But when it comes to breakups, as with many industries, the tide is turning toward wellness, which means a new focus on things like skincare, weight loss, and even weed as companies capitalize on the notion of “self-care.” It's important to note that while self-care has its (non-capitalist) roots in the works of black women, particularly Audre Lorde and bell hooks, it's been largely co-opted by brands in recent years.
As such, there are now breakup apps, subscription-esque post breakup boxes complete with candles and journals, and post breakup retreats where you take a getaway to focus on your broken heart — if you can fork up the cash. Now, I’m not talking about something like journaling (though you can buy special breakup journals if you fancy) or speaking to a therapist, or even retail therapy. I’m talking about products with the sole purpose of helping you get over your breakup.
But are these products worth the money? Having been through my share of “situationships” ending, I checked out a few options created by women who've also been through it themselves.
Mend, the self-care app ($59.99 to $149.99)
On the cheaper end of these breakup products is an app called Mend, which calls itself the “#1 self-care app for breakups and beyond." It's free to download but requires in-app purchases ranging from $12.49 to $19.99 a month to use the app in earnest.
Mend began as a newsletter about heartbreak that founder Elle Huerta sent to friends and family after a transformative breakup of her own. After getting requests that she build a permanent place for her writings, Huerta created the content site, and the Slack Mend community, with nearly 300 members, formed. After more than a year of people asking for more personalized help, Huerta decided to create the app to help others process their breakups. That’s when she enlisted the help of engineers as well as mental health and wellness experts for the audio portion of the app.
Part of Mend is a chat system with an AI bot trained by a therapist. While therapists recommend the app, Huerta says the app does not do outreach and that mental health professional recommendations are all organic. “We never set out to replace therapy, so it's great to see that those who can afford to do both are seeing positive results,” Huerta said in an interview with Mashable.
On my initial use of Mend, I plugged in answers to personal questions, like when the breakup happened and when was the last time of contact. When you open the app after completing the initial questions, the chatbot walks you through a set of exercises, like logging your mood and journaling. Mend’s podcast and written articles are free, but unless one pays for a Mend subscription, they can't listen to audio trainings.
To really experience the full app, users need to pay for premium access. Mend has three different plans: You can join for 6 months for $99.99 ($16.66/month); 3 months for $59.99 ($19.99/month); or 12 months for $149.99 ($12.49/month). This unlocks Mend’s full training program, full of audio recordings that are mini-lessons, like “True Love Doesn’t Hurt” or “Getting Ready for Valentine’s Day” (I researched this article shortly before the holiday). The premium Mend Community on Slack is another resource that, unlike just the app experience, lets you commiserate with others who've gone through what you did.
The three plans are called “Get Out of Your PJs,” “Feel Like You Again,” and “Rebuild in Life & Love,” respectively. After listing the prices, a pop-up chimes in with, “So you can Mend for the cost of a latte a week!”
“We decided on our pricing based on the value we provide, balanced with the desire to provide fair compensation to everyone involved with the creation of the audio trainings (therapists, wellness experts, sound editors, etc.) and the app itself,” said Team Mend in a statement to Mashable.
After using Mend for several days, I found that it’s pretty easy to fall "off the wagon" and not open the app even if you are paying for it (and, say, have notifications turned off). The total in-app experience can be less than 10 minutes, and the audio training is around three minutes long. To get anything out of Mend, you have to put in the work it sets out for you — and that involves a lot more than just pressing “purchase” in the app store. For those who want to take their “healing” further, Mend offers classes and a retreat.
A $300 breakup box
For those who want something more tangible, there’s the Unbreakable Box. At $300, the “healing kit” includes journals, candles, an affirmations book, pencils, and meditation recordings (that are also available digitally, should you not have a record player).
Unbreakable was founded by Bonnie Lenore who, like Huerta, went through a transformative breakup. While Huerta started a newsletter to write about her experience, Lenore went a more classic “Malibu divorcee” route by throwing herself into spirituality healing after friends suggested alternative methods to traditional therapy.
“I was kind of down for anything because I was like, ‘Anything to stop the pain,’” Lenore said in an interview with Mashable. Self-proclaimed angel healer Therese Sanderson, who wrote an "angelic intention" featured in the box, became Lenore’s personal healer, and Lenore credits her with helping her redevelop trust: “My practice is rooted in trust.”
“The kit is designed to bring yourself to yourself”
With the help of Sanderson, Lenore developed a daily practice of setting intentions and calming her mind that she described as wholly centered on herself. “Everything you're looking for externally to make you feel better — once you realize it's within you, that's when the true healing can begin,” she said.
“The kit is designed to bring yourself to yourself,” she said, or to have those who use it, as Lenore put it, walk through the pain as opposed to around it. “My target is anyone that's open to accepting that there's a spiritual path to healing," she said. The kit is gender-neutral, but the majority of users are women ages 30 to 45. However, some of the “beta testers” for the Unbreakable Kit were men, according to Lenore.
“We have handcrafted three intentional practices to support countless men and women on their healing journey post-breakup,” explains Unbreakable’s website. “Even one action daily from the healing kit will allow you to feel better, more connected to yourself, and able to move forward from this break-up with love, for you."
There are three practices in the kit: Accept, Create, and Love. Each comes with its own journal, meditation track, pencil, candle, and products unique to each step — intention cards for Accept, photos to make a vision board for Create, a book of affirmations for Love.
I received an Unbreakable Kit of my own for this article. The kit itself is a pale pink box big enough for all the practice materials (each practice separated into its own canvas bag) and a card explaining each step. Like Mend, to get anything out of the purchase you have to put in the work — writing in the journals, making the vision board, reading the affirmations.
A breakup retreat for a few cool thousand dollars
Finally, for those who want to go “the full monty” in terms of spending to heal your broken heart, there’s a real-life getaway experience. The tagline for Renew Breakup Bootcamp is “A scientific and spiritual approach to healing the heart,” suggesting it’s more retreat than bootcamp. Many outlets have covered it, with journalists experiencing the retreat themselves.
Unsurprisingly, founder Amy Chan came up with Renew after a breakup. She'd thought she was going to marry and become a stay-at-home mother, but the relationship ended abruptly. “My whole life plan was set out,” she said in an interview with Mashable. “When the relationship fell apart, I completely fell apart."
She went through panic attacks, depression, and suicidal ideation and tried “everything” — Reiki, psychics, yoga retreats — but said there wasn’t one practice fitted to the type of pain she was experiencing. The advice people gave her, like telling her she should be “over it by now," was also unhelpful.
“That's the inspiration for why Renew started,” Chan said. Through her own breakup, she discovered what someone needs when going through the shakeup of leaving a relationship. Chan and her ex are actually now friends.
“When the relationship fell apart, I completely fell apart.”
For Renew, Chan put together a curriculum. She spoke to psychologists, therapists, mind hackers, coaches, yoga instructors, and energy healers. These people's expertise ranged “from the extremely scientific to the metaphysical,” she said.
As with Unbreakable, Chan’s main clientele is women ages 30 to 45 (as of now, only women are allowed at Renew retreats, but she is working on a program for men). This makes sense: By their 30s and 40s, women may be able to more easily afford the price tag. Renew retreats cost at the lowest $1,995, which is early-bird pricing for a bunk bed in a shared room. The price goes up to $3,295 for a private room.
"Yes, this weekend was bougie," said New York Times writer Molly Oswaks about Renew. "But bougie felt nice." Oswaks went on to describe the comfy living quarters and luxe menu, including a blood orange ricotta cheesecake "so delicious that [Oswaks] ate it with [her] hands. Fortune writer Laura Entis described Renew as a "weekend in which every detail feels custom-made for Instagram."
During our conversation, Chan said she's gotten "incredible" feedback from participants; she read a text from a one who described Chan as her "guiding light."
It can seem intimidating to see these products and come to the conclusion that you need to spend money to mend your broken heart. Of course, that's not true. What these products give you is the tools you can use to help yourself. The Unbreakable box offers journals to write in, but you are the one who has to do the exercises. Mend has audio trainings available for paid users, but you have to listen to them and absorb them. Renew offers over 12 hours of programming in one day, but you are the one that has to actually show up — mentally, as well as physically — in order to absorb their lessons.
Self-care, with its origins in working through pain and trauma, took off in the mainstream once it became glossy and Instagram-ready. Brands and corporations seized upon the moment to provide X and Y thing that you can buy in the fruitless hope that it will make you happy and fix your life.
But self-care, real self-care, is the inner work you do within yourself. These products can provide value not because they have the branding my millennial ass loves, or because of their price tag, or sleek branding, or harrowing origin stories, but because the ultimate goal is for you to solve your broken heart from the inside out.
You do not need any of these products, or any products at all — even Ben & Jerrys — to do this. You do not need to spend money, but you do need to spend time and attention on yourself.
And that realization, not a box or an app or a retreat, is self-care.
