Air Up, a Honest Review of this new drink bottle

My 12 year old son told me about Air Up, the bottle that makes you drink more water while thinking you are drinking something else by using your sense of smell!

It sounded good. He wanted to drink more water instead of fruit squash. I have to drink lots of water because of my treatment and plain water is boring. I don’t like squash so I would flavour my water with cold tea bags. So, Air Up sounded like a good idea for me too.

What is Air Up?

Basically it’s a bottle that you fill with water and then drink through a straw which goes through a scented pod. The smell tricks your senses into thinking the water is flavoured. According to Air Up, they work with something called ‘retronasal’ where what you are tasting is 80% perceived from what you smell. This is according to the National Institution of Deafness and Other Communication.

We were both excited about this new bottle so we ordered two starter sets at £24.99 each (price correct at time of publication of this article.) For this we got a bottle with a straw, mouthpiece and silicone strap and three air up pods. Each air up pods lasts for 5 litres of water. The bottles we ordered were 650ml. My son chose black and I chose purple. Here is mine.

I had peach flavour pods and my son had wild berry.

First Impressions

We were impressed with our bottles, they looked good and were sturdy and pretty big. We were sure we’d be drinking more water. We followed the instructions to put the bottles together which were pretty simple. Then we added the pods. They smelt really nice.

To activate the pod you lift it up and then smell it as you drink through the straw. I have a great sense of smell and straight away my water took on a mild peach flavour. My son had less success and said all he could taste was water. I tried his to see if it was faulty, but I could taste the berry flavour. So it was 50/50. They worked great for me but my son just couldn’t taste anything but water. He was really disappointed but still liked his new bottle and vowed to use it for drinking water only. I did buy him some more pods but nothing worked for him.

I enjoyed mine more and it helped to make my water intake more pleasant.

After a few months

We are both still using our bottles but not as much as we had hoped. I wanted to use mine for when I went to hospital but there were two problems. You have to carry the bottle upright if you don’t want it to leak. It didn’t fit in my wheelchair bottle holder and I couldn’t store it in my bag in case it tipped up. Also, It makes a slurping noise when you drink from it with the pod up. If I push the pod down it doesn’t slurp, but I can’t smell the flavour. I would hate to for others to hear me slurping so I only use the bottle at home.

I like my bottle but I do kind of regret buying them. My son was very disappointed that it didn’t work for him, he really couldn’t taste anything. I liked the mild taste sensation which was similar to my cold tea bags. I’m not so happy with the bottle but they do work out cheaper. The pods vary in price but work out a fair bit cheaper than the cold tea bags because they last so long. If I was asked which I preferred, I’d say the cold tea bags. But I may be tempted to try some of the newer flavoured pods as they sound exciting, like the Virgin Mojito or the Lavender Lemonade. I’ve not tried them with sparkling water yet.

I use my bottle a lot at home but I do wish I could take it out with me without worrying about leaks and slurping.

My son uses his bottle but he doesn’t get anything from the smell so it’s not worth him using the pods. (all the more for me then!)

Since our purchase they have introduced steel bottles which look really cool.

The bottles have mixed reviews, some people love them, some hate them. I think we are proof that they work for some and not others.

I bought Air Up with my own money and I was not asked to write this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. If you wish to find out more you can visit the Air Up website here.