New Wellness Brand Mabel’s Mushroom Microdosing Plan For Mental Clarity

All aspects of women’s health have long been overlooked and understudied, especially women’s mental health. New French wellness platform Mabel believes microdosing functional mushroom products could be part of the solution. 

Created by sisters Caroline and Pernille Brostrup over the course of three years, the brand has launched with 600,000 euros or about $655,000 in pre-seed funding from prominent French businessmen, including billionaire and Veepee CEO Jacques-Antoine Granjon, Laboratoires Anios executive Bertrand Letartre and Reza Malakadesh, general partner at global investment firm Partech. At the heart of its offering is Mindful Microdosing Program, a 99 euro or $108 five-week program combining psilocybin truffles for at-home microdosing with its app for weekly classes, a conversation-based journal, meditation exercises and community access. 

Amir Lofti, a neuroscientist and psilocybin researcher, and Shauna Shapiro, a psychologist and mindfulness expert, developed the program to provide women an easy-to-follow protocol for improving mental clarity, productivity and emotional resilience. Legally, Mabel can ship its psilocybin truffles to any country in the European Union.

“Magic mushrooms are the future of women’s wellness,” says Pernille. “They offer a natural, non-addictive way to reset the mind, and they are proving to be a game-changer for women dealing with stress, anxiety and hormonal issues.”

Outside of the EU, notably to American customers, Mabel sells two functional mushroom products priced at 49 euros or about $53 each: lion’s mane- and cordyceps-infused Morning Manna and reishi- and chaga-infused Midnight Manna. Rather than be in capsule or gummy formats, the functional mushroom blends are unique for their liquid, ethanol-free, slightly sweet syrup made of organic flax seed and glycerin. 

“I take a lot of supplements, and it’s not sexy. I don’t want to swallow more capsules,” says Pernille. “When you have a liquid product, it becomes sublingual, so it penetrates the blood brain barrier much faster, which means that it can have potency of up to 10 times what you would have in a capsule or powder.”

Pernille has struggled with brain fog, concentration difficulties and depression. She explored traditional therapy and antidepressants without much success. She began studying functional mushrooms in search of remedies, ultimately resulting in the formulas for Morning Manna and Midnight Manna. They’ve been beneficial for her concentration and even helped clear up hormonal issues she was dealing with.

Still, Pernille battled lingering depression, causing her to explore psychedelics and talk to Ben Rein, an MDMA researcher, adjunct lecturer at Stanford University and chief science officer of the Mind Science Foundation. He recommended she try microdosing, the practice of taking small amounts of a psychoactive drug, and she was able to completely phase out antidepressants within six weeks. 

“Suddenly all of these mindfulness exercises that I’ve been doing for years, they just worked instantly,” she says. “The needle just moved so fast.” She adds, “People have this idea that mindfulness and mental wellness is going to be cucumbers and meditation, but it can sometimes be shaking you a little bit. Sometimes, it’s worth getting down and dirty.”

The Brostrup sisters have big retail plans for Mabel in Europe and the United States, but the brand’s distribution is currently direct-to-consumer—mostly. It made an early devoted fan of Émilie Peltier, facialist at skincare brand Augustinus Bader’s Paris flagship store. Peltier suffers from endometriosis and discovered Mabel’s products have been a life saver for her symptoms from the condition. Now, Peltier makes Mabel’s products available to the store’s VIP clientele who suffer from hormonal imbalances. 

Stateside, Pernille sees Erewhon as Mabel’s dream retail partner. Yet, as beauty and wellness continue to converge, she knows the brand’s list of possible retail partners is much bigger than upscale and natural grocers.

“Today, more women are realizing that beauty starts first and foremost with our inner landscape,” says Pernille. “If we are not solved inside, it will always reflect on the outside. Either you can literally see it on the face or it’ll become sickness. So, there is something very interesting to say about beauty and wellness, beauty and mental health.”