Pure Lion's Mane UK: Powders, Capsules and What to Compare

Reviewed and updated: 9 November 2026

Pure lion's mane, for most UK shoppers, means lion's mane with nothing much else added: either the whole dried mushroom ground into a powder, or a concentrated extract in a capsule or tablet. I'm Dr. Miron, founder of Pure Vitamins UK, and in this guide I compare three popular UK lion's mane products, Mushrooms for Life Organic Lion's Mane capsules, Cytoplan Organic Lion's Mane and Cotswold Mushrooms Lion's Mane Fruiting Body Powder, with our own Lion's Mane Supplement 4000mg with Vitamin B1. I stick to facts you can check yourself: the form, how much lion's mane is in a daily serving, whether it is a powder or an extract, what else is inside, price and delivery. I'll also be honest about where each one fits, including where ours is not the closest match to what you want.

Pure lion's mane in the UK: the quick answer

• Cotswold Mushrooms Lion's Mane Fruiting Body Powder: whole fruiting body powder with no fillers, certified organic, 60g for £9.99 today (was £13.99). Taken by the teaspoon in food or drinks. The closest thing to "just the mushroom".
• Cytoplan Organic Lion's Mane: whole fruiting body powder in capsules, 425mg per capsule, two capsules a day (850mg), certified organic, suitable for vegans. £28.49.
• Mushrooms for Life Organic Lion's Mane: a 14:1 dual-extract (hot water and alcohol) of organic fruiting bodies, 800mg of extract per two-capsule serving, in an HPMC capsule with no other ingredients listed. Price not shown on the retailer page we checked.
• Pure Vitamins Lion's Mane Supplement 4000mg with Vitamin B1: a 15:1 lion's mane extract standardised to 50% polysaccharides, 267mg per two-tablet serving (equivalent to 4,000mg of lion's mane powder), plus 4.4mg vitamin B1 and 20mg black pepper extract. 60 tablets for £13.99, about 47p a day.
• Ours is a formula, not lion's mane on its own. If "pure" to you means a single ingredient, the powder or the Cytoplan capsules are the closer match.
• If a practitioner recommended a particular lion's mane product to you, check with them before switching.

Our pick for this guide

Prefer a standardised lion's mane extract in a simple daily tablet?

Two tablets give 267mg of 15:1 lion's mane extract (equivalent to 4,000mg of lion's mane powder), standardised to 50% polysaccharides, with 4.4mg of vitamin B1 and black pepper extract. A pouch of 60 tablets lasts a month. A food supplement, not a replacement for medical advice.

From £13.99 · 60 tablets

Shop Lion's Mane →

What do people mean by "pure lion's mane"?

Lion's mane (Hericium erinaceus) is the shaggy white mushroom that looks a little like a frozen waterfall. It has been eaten as a delicacy in Chinese and Japanese cooking for centuries, where it is known as hou tou gu and yamabushitake, and it has long been valued in traditional East Asian practice as a nourishing everyday food. Today it is one of the most searched-for mushrooms in the UK, and "pure lion's mane" covers three slightly different wishes:

• Lion's mane and nothing else. No other mushrooms, herbs or vitamins in the mix.
• No fillers. As short an ingredient list as possible, often with no capsule at all.
• The fruiting body. Many buyers want the mushroom itself (the fruiting body) rather than mycelium grown on grain.

"Pure" is not a regulated term on a supplement label, so the useful thing is to read the ingredient list. Cotswold Mushrooms' powder is described as 100% fruiting body with no grains and no filler. Cytoplan lists organic lion's mane fruiting body powder and a plant cellulose capsule shell. The Mushrooms for Life capsules list a fruiting body extract powder in an HPMC capsule, with no fillers or additives. Our tablets are a deliberate three-part formula: lion's mane extract, vitamin B1 and black pepper extract, plus the tablet-making ingredients shown on the label. I would not call ours a lion's mane-only product, and I don't. If you want to understand the difference between the mushroom and the mycelium in more depth, my guide to fruiting body vs mycelium goes through it.

The fresh mushroom, sliced, and the dried powder it becomes. Illustrative image.

The products side by side

Here is everything in one place. Competitor details were read today from the brand's own website or, where we could not read the brand's site, a UK retailer listing. Ours come from our product page. Where a fact was not shown on the page we checked, I have left it out rather than guess.

Delivery, checked 9 November 2026: Healf charges £3.99 standard delivery on orders under £50 and is free over £50. Cytoplan charges £4.50 on orders under £40, is free over £40 and free on all subscriptions. Cotswold Mushrooms offers free shipping on orders over £60 (its standard charge below that was not shown on the pages we could read). Our own delivery options are shown at checkout.

Whole powder or extract: the difference that matters most

This is the single most useful thing to understand when comparing lion's mane, because the milligram numbers on the front of a pack mean different things depending on which kind you are looking at.

• Whole fruiting body powder (Cotswold Mushrooms, Cytoplan) is the dried mushroom, ground. Nothing is removed. 850mg of powder is 850mg of dried mushroom.
• An extract (Mushrooms for Life, ours) is made by soaking the dried mushroom in hot water, and sometimes alcohol, to draw out its compounds, then drying that liquid. The ratio tells you how much dried mushroom went in for each part that came out. A 14:1 ratio means about 14g of mushroom for every 1g of extract; 15:1 means about 15g for every 1g.

So you can put the products on the same footing by working out the dried-mushroom equivalent per daily serving, using each brand's stated ratio:

• Mushrooms for Life: 800mg × 14 = about 11,200mg of mushroom per two-capsule serving (and up to three servings a day on the label).
• Pure Vitamins: 267mg × 15 = about 4,000mg per two-tablet serving, which is the figure on our label.
• Cytoplan: 850mg of whole powder per two-capsule serving.
• Cotswold Mushrooms: depends how many teaspoons you use; the page does not give grams per spoon.

Two honest caveats. First, extract ratios are a measure of concentration, not a guarantee of how much of any particular compound is inside, and different producers measure them differently. Second, more is not automatically better: the right amount is the one on the label of the product you choose. That is why we also state a standardisation, 50% polysaccharides, which tells you what share of our extract is made up of that group of compounds (about 133mg per serving).

Dual extraction (hot water and then alcohol) is worth a word, because Mushrooms for Life highlight it. Hot water draws out the water-soluble polysaccharides such as beta-glucans; alcohol draws out smaller, less water-soluble compounds. Researchers describe two families of these smaller compounds in lion's mane: hericenones, found in the fruiting body, and erinacines, found mainly in the mycelium (Cipriano and colleagues, 2026). Most of the work on those compounds so far has been in the laboratory rather than in people.

Kettle on, oats in the bowl, tablets next to the mug. Illustrative image.

Powder, capsule or tablet: which format fits your day?

Format is mostly a practical choice, and I'd choose it by how you actually live.

• Powder suits people who enjoy stirring something into coffee, porridge, soup or a smoothie. It has the shortest ingredient list of all. It has a mild, earthy taste, you need to measure it, and a 60g pouch lasts a different length of time depending on how much you use. My piece on lion's mane coffee has ideas if you go this way.
• Capsules suit people who want a set amount with no taste. Both capsule products here use plant-based shells.
• Tablets (ours) suit people who want a fixed amount and a single routine, and who like to have other ingredients, here vitamin B1, in the same product. Tablets need a few tablet-making ingredients to hold together; they are listed on our label.

If you are wondering about timing, I've written separately about when to take lion's mane, and about amounts and ratios in my lion's mane dosage guide.

What else is in each one?

Only one product here contains more than lion's mane, and that is ours, so it is fair to explain why.

We add vitamin B1 (thiamine) at 4.4mg per daily serving, which is 400% of the NRV. Thiamine contributes to normal psychological function and to the normal functioning of the nervous system. It also contributes to normal energy-yielding metabolism and to the normal function of the heart. Those are the roles of vitamin B1 itself, whichever product it comes in. The lion's mane in our tablets is described by what it is: its form, its ratio and its standardisation. My article on taking lion's mane with B vitamins covers how they fit together.

We also add black pepper extract (10:1, 20mg), a standardised source of piperine. If you take any regular medication, check with a pharmacist before adding a product that contains piperine, because it can affect how some medicines are handled by the body.

The other three products are lion's mane only. If you want a single-ingredient product with no added vitamin and no pepper extract, they are the closer match, and I would rather you knew that up front.

A quiet mid-morning at the desk, pouch within reach. Illustrative image.

What does the research on lion's mane actually look like?

People choose lion's mane for many reasons, and a lot of the interest comes from research into its compounds. Here is the honest picture, kept short. Much of the work has been in cells and animals. Human trials are few and small. One of the better-designed recent studies, from Northumbria University, gave healthy adults aged 18 to 45 either 1.8g of lion's mane or a placebo. After a single dose, the lion's mane group was quicker on one computer task, and over 28 days there was a non-significant trend in how stressed people said they felt; several other measures showed no difference, and the authors stress that the study was a small pilot (Docherty and colleagues, 2023).

That is interesting science, but it is early, and it was done with one particular preparation. It does not tell you that any product in this comparison, ours included, will do the same for you. For the wider picture, see my guide to what the research on lion's mane says.

The cost, worked out

Pack prices can mislead, because packs last different lengths of time. Here is what I could work out honestly from today's pages:

• Pure Vitamins Lion's Mane: £13.99 ÷ 30 days = about 47p a day, for 267mg of 15:1 extract plus vitamin B1.
• Cotswold Mushrooms powder: £9.99 for 60g. At one level teaspoon a day the pouch would last a long time, but the page does not give grams per teaspoon, so I have not put a price per day on it.
• Cytoplan Organic Lion's Mane: £28.49; the capsule count was not shown on the page we read, so I could not work out a price per day.
• Mushrooms for Life: the price was not shown on the retailer page we checked.

Delivery changes the sum too. A single item from Healf adds £3.99 under £50, from Cytoplan £4.50 under £40, and Cotswold Mushrooms is free over £60. The powder is the lowest up-front price in this comparison.

Lunch by the window, with a glass of water for the tablets. Illustrative image.

What a customer says about ours

Which one suits you

I want this section to be useful even if you end up buying from someone else.

Cotswold Mushrooms Lion's Mane Fruiting Body Powder may suit you better if:

• "Pure" means the whole mushroom and nothing else to you, with no capsule or tablet ingredients.
• You enjoy adding it to coffee or food, and you want the lowest up-front price.

Cytoplan Organic Lion's Mane may suit you better if:

• You want whole fruiting body powder in a capsule, certified organic and suitable for vegans, without measuring spoons.

Mushrooms for Life Organic Lion's Mane may suit you better if:

• You want a dual hot-water and alcohol extract of organic fruiting bodies, in a capsule with nothing else added, and a higher extract amount per serving.
• A practitioner recommended it. In that case, speak to them before changing anything.

Our Lion's Mane Supplement 4000mg with Vitamin B1 may suit you better if:

• You want a standardised extract (15:1, 50% polysaccharides) with a declared dried-mushroom equivalent, in one routine of two tablets a day.
• You like having vitamin B1 in the same product, and a monthly pouch at about 47p a day from a brand that publishes a Certificate of Analysis for each batch.

If you are still deciding what to look for in general, my broader guide to choosing a lion's mane supplement walks through the checklist.

A few cautions worth knowing

• If you have a mushroom allergy, avoid lion's mane products.
• If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, take regular medication or have a medical condition, speak to your GP or pharmacist first. This matters for products with black pepper extract (piperine), including ours.
• Stick to the amount on the label of the product you choose, and count any lion's mane in coffees or blends you already use. My article is 4000mg of lion's mane safe? looks at amounts in more detail.
• Our product is for adults only. Keep all supplements out of reach of children.

Frequently asked questions

What is pure lion's mane?

There is no legal definition. Most people use it to mean lion's mane on its own, with few or no fillers, often from the fruiting body. A whole fruiting body powder is the most literal version; extracts in capsules are a concentrated version; some products, like ours, combine a lion's mane extract with other ingredients.

Is lion's mane powder or extract better?

Neither is better for everyone. Powder is the whole dried mushroom with nothing removed. An extract is concentrated, and its ratio tells you roughly how much dried mushroom went into it. Choose the format that suits how you like to take it, and read the label for the amount per serving.

How much lion's mane is in Pure Vitamins Lion's Mane?

Each two-tablet daily serving contains 267mg of 15:1 lion's mane extract, standardised to 50% polysaccharides, which is equivalent to 4,000mg of lion's mane powder. It also contains 4.4mg of vitamin B1 and 20mg of black pepper extract.

Is Pure Vitamins connected to any of the brands compared here?

No. Pure Vitamins UK is an independent British brand. We are not connected to, endorsed by or affiliated with Mushrooms for Life, Cytoplan, Cotswold Mushrooms or Healf.

Is lion's mane fruiting body or mycelium?

Both exist. The fruiting body is the mushroom you can see; mycelium is the root-like network it grows from. Cotswold Mushrooms, Cytoplan and Mushrooms for Life all state that they use the fruiting body.

Our pick for this guide

Want lion's mane extract and vitamin B1 in one daily routine?

Two tablets a day give 267mg of 15:1 lion's mane extract, equivalent to 4,000mg of lion's mane powder, with 4.4mg of vitamin B1, which contributes to normal psychological function. A food supplement, not a replacement for medical advice.

From £13.99 · 60 tablets

Shop Lion's Mane →

Where these facts come from

• Mushrooms for Life Organic Lion's Mane, 14:1 dual extract, 800mg per two-capsule serving, HPMC capsule, Healf delivery £3.99 under £50 and free over £50, checked 9 November 2026: healf.com
• Cytoplan Organic Lion's Mane, £28.49, 425mg fruiting body powder per capsule, 2 capsules daily, checked 9 November 2026: cytoplan.co.uk; delivery £4.50 under £40, free over £40: Cytoplan delivery information
• Cotswold Mushrooms Lion's Mane Fruiting Body Powder 60g, £9.99 (was £13.99), free shipping over £60, checked 9 November 2026: cotswoldmushrooms.com
• Pure Vitamins Lion's Mane Supplement 4000mg with Vitamin B1, £13.99, 60 tablets: our lion's mane product page

Sources

• Docherty S, Doughty FL, Smith EF. The Acute and Chronic Effects of Lion's Mane Mushroom Supplementation on Cognitive Function, Stress and Mood in Young Adults: A Double-Blind, Parallel Groups, Pilot Study. Nutrients, 2023. PMC10675414
• Cipriano GL and colleagues. Beyond Neurotrophins: A Proposed Neurotrophic-Epigenetic Axis Mediated by Non-Coding RNA Networks for Hericium erinaceus Bioactives. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2026. PMC12898533

More reading: our supplement guides hub and the Pure Vitamins UK home page.

Dr. Miron, Founder of Pure Vitamins UK

Food supplements should not be used as a substitute for a varied, balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle. This article is for general information and is not medical advice. Always speak to your GP or pharmacist if you have a medical condition, take medication, or are pregnant or breastfeeding.