I am not (usually) afraid of the dark. But I am usually drinking — from a water bottle, or a wine or cocktail glass — until just before I go to bed. So most nights, I wake up with a bladder ready to burst around 3 or 4 a.m. Still, for a long time I would resist the urge to get up and go, hoping I’d nod back off and just dream about relieving myself until morning came. This wasn’t to avoid leaving the comfort of my mattress and sheets, but because I would need to turn my bathroom’s overhead fluorescent light on in order to get the job done. Doing that would always jolt me from semi-asleep to fully awake, making it that much harder to conk out again once my head returned to my pillow. (Those who sleep using eye masks or blackout curtains might understand my dilemma.)
But my nightly struggles became a thing of the past when my future mother-in-law gave me Ausaye’s mushroom-shaped night-light for no reason whatsoever — we don’t talk about my bathroom habits. Like most night-lights, it is small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, and plugs into a standard outlet. During the day, it looks like a little toadstool sprouting from my wall, but at night, when I turn off the rest of the lights, is when the thing really shines. Or, rather, glows, just enough to guide me — but not so brightly that it jolts me out of semi-sleep — on bathroom runs in the wee hours. It has a built-in darkness sensor, too, so there’s no need to turn it on.
Like some other shrooms, the mushroom night-light is a bit trippy. It automatically changes colors about every five seconds, continuously turning from white to fuchsia to purple to red to blue to green (making it ideal for chromotherapy fans). But no color shines brighter than another, and they change via a slow fade, not an abrupt flash, so the cycle is soothing rather than startling. I haven’t tried it in other rooms, but suspect it would appeal to those searching for an atypical night-light for a kids’ bedroom or nursery, or who just like to snag décor from the kids’ section for their own spaces. The night-light is as fun to look at as it is functional — and for those who can rarely go a full sleep cycle without a trip to the bathroom, it may be the most life-altering mushroom you can legally buy.
If you need night-lights for more than one room (or prefer a static color to changing hues), consider Ausaye’s set of mushroom lights that cast a “warm white” glow.
Another Strategist-approved nightlight
If you’re looking for something similar that fits right into the toilet bowl, try the IllumiBowl, a Shark Tank sensation that we’ve written about before.
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