Harry Styles' Pleasing pop-up

Pleasing Astro Milk Bar  Pop-Up Shop Chicago 2024 
photo by Mitchell Hoverman 

I love visiting my good friend and I love Chicago so naturally I love visiting my good friend who lives in Chicago.  No matter the season, we always have the best time finding yummy places to eat, hanging out and site seeing around Chi-town.
As I planned my visit I realized that it happened to coencided with the Harry Styles' Pleasing Astro Milk Bar pop-up shop!

The pop-up shop is to promote his newest nail polish shade collection, Astro Milk and the whole Pleasing line. I had no idea there was a Pleasing pop-up shop in the works or a new Pleasing nail polish collection. Needless to say I was so excited to add this pit stop to our Summer in Chicago 2024 list! 

Founded in 2021, Pleasing is Harry Styles' beauty and apparel brand which includes nail polishes, frangrences, clothes and accessories that are eco-friendly and sustainable.

You'll be pleased to know that you can find any nail polish color under the sun and they're all animal cruelty-free, biodigradable and plant based (no chemicals). His apparel and accessories are all ethically crafted while Pleasing perfume uses consciously harvested materials as well as locally sourced ingredients through partnerships with co-op programs that support small communities and environmentally efficient productions methods.

 Expensive? Yes! Worth it? I think so!

A four pack of nail polih goes for $65 which is a deal being that single bottles go for $20 a pop.

The Pleasing Astro Milk popped up on the outskirts of downtown Chicago on June 15th, or "touched down"  as all of the promos leading up to it said, tying in the out of this world theme for the Astro Milk collection. June 15th also served as the launch of the four new colors.
Our visit was about two weeks after the shop popped-off on an overcast yet sweaty July afternoon perfect for a midday pick me up scoop of ice cream. And picking up some mani/pedi materials.

inside the Pleasing pop-up shop in Chicago July 2024
photo by Nikki DeMartini

inside the Pleasing pop-up shop in Chicago July 2024
photo by Nikki DeMartini

The store front is wrapped in a shinny silver lame, creating the illusion of walking into a spaceship or UFO. Inside we were met with bright red and seafoam green decor, giving a retro, pop-art sort of atmosphere.
And of course there was a not so retro selfie-op. 

It wasn't exclusively Astro Milk stuff on sale either, it was everything from Pleasing! All of the colors, all of the styles. It wasn't very busy when we got there but more people came and went as we shopped. 

The Astro Milk collection constists of  four pastels that go on sheer but dry with a milky finish:
 Cow Jumped Over the Moon is an icy lite blue.
Space Pink Polish is a super soft baby pink.
Not Sorbet Polish is a cool mauve hue.
Milk Man's Cheeks Polish is on the muted peach spectrum. 

Pleasing Nail Polishes inside the Pleasing pop-up shop in Chicago July 2024
photo by Mitchell Hoverman 

The only cash registers are in the back of the shop where ice cream orders are placed and picked up. A great place for some impluse ice cream purchases to "skyrocket" the price tag of your Pleasing purchase. 

Though neither of us bought a polish from the Astro Milk line, we came wanting some scoops so there was no impulse ice cream for us.
We had mindful ice cream from the Astro Milk Bar. 

The four ice creams match their corresponding nail polish shades:
- Blueberry = Cow Jumped Over the Moon
- Strawberry = Space Milk
- Red Velvet = Not Sorbet
- Espresso = Milk Man's Cheeks

 Milk Bar at the Pleasing pop-up shop in Chicago July 2024
photo by Nikki DeMartini

 After picking out some Pleasing polishes and perfume we got in line to pay and get our sugar fix. I hadn't noticed anyone else get any ice cream while we were there and it didn't take long until we were on our way with our Pleasings. 

Each scoop came in a paper container about the size of a 1/4 of a pint with a lid on top. You get more ice cream here than you would at some other places for the same price or more! 

It's packaging matches the packaging and colors of the Astro Milk nail polishes.
Very cute. Very clever. 

Very asethetically...pleasing. 

Because blueberry ice cream is seldom seen, that's the flavor I got while my good friend traded his afternoon esspresso for a scoop of the espresso ice cream. Both ice creams are colorful in their own regard. The blueberry ice cream was light blue much like Cow Jumped Over the Moon and had specs of actually blueberries in it while the espresso coffee was much more robust than the faint mauve hue of Milk Man's Cheeks. 

Keeping up with staying sustainable, Pleasing's ice cream is manufactured by Brown Cow Ice Cream Parlor and Creamery based out of Forest Park Illinois. Brown Cow sources local ingredients, eco-friendly and compostable products, it's staff is made up of people from their community, they use seasonal ingredients and do what they can to work towards being a zero waste company. How pleasing, an eco-friendly and sustainable ice cream and company. 

Cow Jumped Over the Moon & Milk Man's Cheeks ice cream from Astro Milk Pleasing pop-up shop Chicago
photo by Nikki DeMartini  

Though they both came from the same creamery the blueberry ice cream was lite and fluffy with the right about of sweet blueberry flavor and the espresso ice cream was thick with a rich, bold coffee flavor. We were pleased with our two different textures. 

Ice cream from Pleasing pop-up shop Chicago July 2024 
photo by Nikki DeMartini

The recovering people pleaser in me couldn't bring herself to buy a $16 paif of lavender thick, cushy socks that donned the word Pleasing on the ankle but I did look at them long and hard. I did go home with a purple polish and a black polish, essential colors for my growing Pleasing nail polish collection. 

We may have spent more on nail polish and perfume than we would have had it not been for the visiting the Pleasing pop-up shop and we're ok with that. Why not treat yourself to silly little spendy things from time to time in this one life you have to live? It's all eco-friendly and sustainable too, so no no need to feel too guilty about that. 

Harry's slogan for his brand is "We're Pleasing, not perfect" and he couldn't be more correct about that! 

 Go please yourself while you can.
 The Pleasing pop-up shop at 1623 N Damen Ave in Chicago, IL is open through July 21st! 

There are no other sightings of the Pleasing Astro Milk pop-up shop landing anywhere else after that...yet.