Harry Styles has announced his second Pleasing collection and the opening of his first clean beauty shop in London. And they’re both big on mushrooms.
It’s been less than six months since singer Harry Styles launched his gender-neutral clean beauty brand, Pleasing. The first collection, which sold out in hours, featured nail polish, skin serum, moisturizer, and branded merchandise.
Styles has now launched his second collection as well as the first Pleasing pop-up shop in London’s Shoreditch neighborhood. The new collection features more polishes and skincare products with a new focus on mushrooms.
Shroom Bloom
Dubbed Shroom Bloom, the new collection embraces psychedelic colors just in time for spring. The Micro Bloom nail collection features four new shades: Sprouting, a pale green opaque gloss, Tender Bud, a mushroom beige opaque gloss, Vine Rip, a vibrant red opaque gloss, and The Whole Dewniverse, a sheer holographic bio-glitter polish.
When Pleasing launched last year, Styles said he started with polish because it was an easy entry point and something he had been using personally for some time.
But the pandemic made it feel like it was more than that, he said at the time.
“I’ve always found that the moments in my life which have brought me the most joy are the small ones, whether it be, you know, the end of the night under the stars or a bite of food, or sitting with your friends thinking, ‘Oh, I’m never gonna forget this’. It’s always those moments that I find have the longest-lasting effect on me, in terms of sparking something wonderful in me. I really think that the essence of Pleasing is finding those little moments of joy and showing them to people,” he said last November.
The collection also features a vegan hand and cuticle balm, and a brightening face serum.
Pleasing’s Hand + Nail Balm claims to nourish and moisturize dry hands and ragged cuticles. It features shea butter, apricot, and snow mushroom extract.
The serum, dubbed Acid Drops Lucid Overnight Serum, won’t send you on a psychedelic trip, but it aims to make your skin feel far out. It contains exfoliating plant-based alpha and beta hydroxy acids to gently remove dead skin cells and deliver a clearer complexion.
Mushrooms in skincare
Mushrooms are a hot trend this year across a number of categories including food, wellness, and mental health treatments.
“As elevated stress and anxiety continue to drive consumers to seek out solutions in the beauty and wellness worlds, I’ve noticed more and more brands answering these concerns with mushroom-powered products,” Alexia Inge, co-founder and CEO of Cult Beauty, told The Editorialist. “These products may include everything from adaptogens like ashwagandha to immunity-boosting reishi or shiitake.”
Mushrooms have been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for years, known for their ability to tackle inflammation and boost immunity. There’s a blooming body of scientific data that supports their effects, particularly for mental health benefits.
But mushroom benefits in skin health have been studied at length, too. A 2019 study found beta-glucan, an active compound in mushrooms, helped heal skin wounds and improve the skin’s barrier. Studies published in 2016 and 2017 found antioxidants in mushrooms improved skin appearance, decreased inflammation, and decreased the signs of aging.
“Mushrooms occupy that unique intersection between ancient mysticism and progressive biohacking,” says Inge. “It’s like medicine man meets Silicon Valley.”
A number of skincare brands include mushroom ingredients. Dr. Andrew Weil formulated a product for Origins, the Mega-Mushroom Relief & Resilience Soothing Treatment Lotion. House of Gro uses them, as does Kiehl’s. Karuna Skin recently launched a beauty line in Whole Foods that contains snow and black hook mushrooms.
Pleasing shop
The Pleasing shop, which is expected to open locations in New York and Los Angeles as well, is also given the psychedelic mushroom treatment. The decor hearkens to 1960s and ’70s psychedelic-era designs.
The shop’s apparel features a sky blue sweatshirt featuring the brand’s psychedelic frog and logo. The collection also includes a tee-shirt in bright yellow, also featuring the frog.
Both are made from 50 percent organic cotton and 40 percent recycled materials. The company says each pound of the sustainable yarn saves up to 5.46 square miles of land cultivation, more than 2,000 gallons of water, nearly 15kWh of electricity, and nearly eight pounds of CO2 compared with conventional cotton.
The campaign enlisted Mick Fleetwood, founding member of the 1970s supergroup Fleetwood Mac and one of Styles’ inspirations. Fleetwood fronts the new campaign, wearing British designer Steven Stokey-Daley, as well as Pleasing merchandise, dressed by Styles’ long-term stylist Harry Lambert.
“Dressing Mick Fleetwood came about through a personal conversation between myself, Harry Lambert and Harry Styles,” Stokey-Daley told GQ. “They gave me a preview of the products that have just released and they asked if I’d be up for designing a unique look for him—they had a very clear idea of what they wanted,” he said. “Obviously I said yes, as it had been great working with them previously and I’d also grown up listening to Fleetwood Mac, so it felt super natural to design a look for him.”
Fleetwood isn’t the only member of the band with a connection to Harry Styles. Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks has been friends with Styles since 2015, and the two have performed together numerous times, most notably at Nicks’ Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2019.