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Drinking water is an unfortunate requirement of survival and, for some of us, it's still pretty dang difficult to remember to hydrate throughout the day.
It's not that I don't like water. I just forget. And if you really do hate water, that's OK too. All water-avoiders are welcome here and, apparently, on TikTok, where more than 300 million people have been freaking out about the Cirkul water bottle.
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The seemingly ordinary water bottle took the app by storm with its unique ability to flavor water. Pop in one of Cirkul's many flavor cartridges, fill the bottle with regular ol' water, and turn the dial on the mouthpiece to choose the flavor intensity. Yes, the intensity. The dial goes from zero to nine, with each level increasing in sweetness, tartness, or whatever key notes are in your chosen flavor cartridge.
As someone who is admittedly terrible at drinking water, I tested Cirkul to see if the beverage tech would alter my habits. After nearly two weeks of usage, I am deeply sorry to say I am still quite awful at drinking water. Though the bottle presents some plastic waste concerns, the Cirkul flavors did kind of make me feel like a joyous little kid every time I used them.
First, how to use it
Part of the hype around Cirkul is the ability to customize your water. Users can order a starter kit and choose the type of bottle, any additional accessories, and your preferred amount of flavor cartridges. Bottles range from $12-$35, and each flavor cartridge is $3.75. As you buy more product, you unlock higher percentage discounts on your entire bundle.
Putting on the Circkul water bottle chill sleeve takes a little elbow grease, but it's worth it. Credit: mashable/jennimai nguyen I received the standard plastic bottle, an insulated "chill sleeve," and seven flavor cartridges. The chill sleeve helped keep my drink cold for longer without the bulk of a stainless steel bottle — also an option you can choose, albeit for a higher price — and I really appreciated this. It's a little difficult to get on and off because of the narrow shape, but once it's on, it's very snug and is in no danger of slipping off.
How to change the flavor cartridge on the Cirkul water bottle. Credit: mashable/jennimai nguyen For flavors, I tested out Fruit Punch, Caramel Iced Coffee, Raspberry Iced Tea, Strawberry Kiwi, Watermelon, Orange Tangerine, and Black Cherry. Installing each cartridge is pretty simple: Just open the package, insert the cartridge into the hole on the bottle's lid, and twist. Fill your bottle with water, set the dial to the intensity you'd like to try, and sip away.
Generally, I liked the flavors, and I definitely liked them more because I could adjust the intensity. Usually, my problem with flavored waters is they are either too sweet or too mild, and with Cirkul, I had that power in my hands. Each flavor also claims to have other benefits: a hit of caffeine, a dose of electrolytes, or a boost of vitamins, to name some.
All of it seemed too easy. "Super easy,"I thought. "I love juice! And beverages in general! This is going to make me drink so much more water!"
Oh, dear reader, how wrong I was.
OK, so how much water did this actually make you drink?
For context, I drink about two Yeti tumblers of water a day, on a good day. That is approximately 40 ounces. The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine recommends that women drink about 92 ounces a day, so this is truly not enough. I started this journey absolutely wanting to be better.
To be fair, Cirkul itself doesn't claim to make you drink more water, but the thousands of TikTok videos from raving users do. "If you struggle drinking water, this is perfect for you," reads the on-screen text of user @kara.cardwell's video, one of many others like it.
The bottle I received carries 22 ounces, and I tried to track exactly how many bottles of flavored water I could down a day. Over two weeks, I averaged about two Cirkul bottles a day, or 44 ounces. I kept track over the days in a journal, noting which flavors I tried, how much I enjoyed it, and how many bottles I drank. As you can see, the results were...not the greatest.
Over two weeks of drinking with the Cirkul water bottle, my water drinking habits really didn't change. Credit: mashable/jennimai nguyen I can't lie, the absolute lack of change in my water habits had me questioning myself as a functioning human being. Why were all these TikTokkers going off about this?! Why did this revolutionize their hydration habits while mine remained unchanged? Are they just...better than me?
Obviously, these were dramatic thoughts. After reflecting for longer than 30 seconds, it's very clear why Cirkul didn't drastically alter my water drinking: I couldn't replace my usual drinks with Cirkul. Yes, every time I wanted water, I reached for my Cirkul, which I could choose to flavor. But when I wanted a glass of juice or my cup of hot morning coffee, I still went for those actual drinks.
This is a personal problem — I am generally resistant to change, and two weeks of a new water bottle did not make me different. But, when I looked at the days I tracked, if I had replaced my daily coffee and other beverages with the Cirkul—which does offer most of those flavors—I would have drunk more water than usual.
If you are less resistant to change than I, or simply more willful, Cirkul could potentially alter your water habits. But for me, the novelty of the water bottle was the better part. I did find myself looking forward to trying new flavors every day, and I liked being more conscious of my water habits. Making the process of drinking water, well, a process, made me enjoy the Cirkul, but it didn't deliver the results I was hoping for.
The good, the bad, and the things to think about
There were plenty of things to like about Cirkul. The flavors, for one, were actually pretty good. They weren't all to my taste, but the vast selection made it easy to trust that I would find some that I liked. And I did feel like the flavors that promised a boost of energy (Caramel Iced Coffee, Raspberry Tea, and Black Cherry) did give me a nice little jolt, but I can't promise that wasn't a placebo effect.
Cirkul also accomplishes the incredible feat of tasty flavors with no added sugars or calories. "Cirkul’s blends are sweetened with sucralose, Stevia or nothing at all (just pure flavor essence), depending on the flavor," said Garrett Waggoner, CEO and founder of Cirkul in an email."Consumers’ health is our top priority, and with Cirkul, we hope to give everyone a custom, convenient and clean way to drink more water."
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The more annoying part was actually switching the flavors in and out. The flavor cartridges are supposed to last up to six bottle refills, but I never kept a cartridge in that long. I wanted to keep changing them, both for testing and variety. But as I did, I realized the cartridges themselves all look exactly the same: plain white, with no markings or colors to tell the flavors apart once you take them out of their packaging.
This meant I had to save the plastic packaging to store the cartridges I wasn't using but wasn't ready to dispose of. It wasn't the most elegant solution, but I didn't want to take a marker to the cartridges either. I ended up with a bunch of crinkly packages around my apartment, an annoyance that could have been easily solved with a little flavor label on the cartridge.
The bottle itself was almost perfect. The size was large enough for a significant amount of water, but not too clunky or heavy. The lid was easy to twist on, and the additional chill sleeve kept condensation away, as it was meant to.
Surprisingly, the sleeve was even more essential than I realized, due to a weird malfunction in the nozzle. The bottle doesn't have an attached mouthpiece; each flavor cartridge has a nozzle that requires you to suck on while tipping the bottle upside down to drink your water. For me, the malfunction occurred once I put the bottle down. Because I was sucking water into the cartridge and nozzle, I inevitably—pardon the grossness—backwashed a little, and when I set the bottle down, some of that backwashed water kinda guzzled back up and spilled over the nozzle. This happened with every single flavor cartridge and attached nozzle I tried.
A nice closeup of regurgitated water from my Cirkul water bottle for you! Credit: mashable/jennimai nguyen That leftover water was always dripping down the side, and the chill sleeve actually caught it so it didn't create a giant puddle, even if the sleeve was then damp. Of course, I would prefer for my backwash to not spill back over, but at least the chill sleeve made it a little less...wet?
Compared to other flavored water receptacles, Cirkul can't be beat in convenience. In fact, there's not much like it. Amazon carries various water bottles with infusers, into which users can insert cut up fruit or other flavor additions. There are liquid flavor drops, like MiO, but Cirkul's built-in flavor receptacle is unique. Adjusting intensity is just a turn of a dial away, and that ease of use is alluring.
Finally, a thought I couldn't get out of my head: Cirkul claims to help reduce plastic waste, but each plastic flavor cartridge must be disposed of after it's empty. So, compared to other reusable water bottles, Cirkul is actually more wasteful. It certainly helps combat single-use plastic bottles, but the impact of throwing away cartridge after cartridge can't be ignored.
You can recycle the cartridges, but it takes the conscious effort of taking them apart first, something the average consumer may not be aware of.
"Cirkul cartridges are made of #5 plastic, which is recyclable in communities that accept it," said Waggoner. "However, the inside of the cartridge contains a foil pouch, which is not recyclable. The cartridge can be disassembled for proper sorting of materials."
Some Tiktokkers have taken it even further, pulling the cartridges apart to refill them with store-bought flavors rather than reordering from Cirkul — thereby reusing the plastic mouthpieces, reducing waste, and saving a little cash.
All in all, Cirkul is just a novel way to drink water. It didn't change my life or my habits, and it's honestly not even the most earth-friendly reusable bottle out there. But if you're looking for a way to spice up your hydration habits and don't mind putting in extra effort to recycle your waste, Cirkul could be worth a try. Who knows? If you keep it up for long enough, you could grow to replace your regularly flavored beverages with Cirkul's yummy flavored water.
Oh, and you don't technically have to drink just water out of your Cirkul...did someone say cocktail to-go?