Every physically active person owns at least one hydration storage unit of some sorts.
…or 30, or so…
I mean, to be fair, fluid storage containers have gone through MAJOR upgrades in design and functionality compared to 10 years ago…
So I may as well take advantage of it now before people stop caring about them again xD.
Anyway, so one day while I was procrastinating from my research (as usual), I saw a post on my Instagram feed from Paperedhearts, a stationary-freak who always had pretty photos:
http://www.instagram.com/p/BR6YhUJFkmM/
and noticed that odd, but cool-looking, rectangular bottle.
I’ve never seen anything like it before, so I clicked further and saw an Instagram account for a company called, “memobottle” and looked further.
I thought the design would make sense for people who carry a lot of notebooks and flat objects in their bags, but always get annoyed by the one cylindrical object they need to fit in their bag, only to get the shape of the bag messed up and have everything not fit properly.
Although I like neutral colors in general, I didn’t like that there wasn’t anything pink or heart-like in any of the bottles.
…but then I scrolled further, and found this:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BPfr7xtDMxZ/
and was like,
“…wait…is that a PINK cap!?!!!?!?!?”
SOLD.
I thought that although the A6 size was unique, the A5 size would be more suitable for me since it could fit into my little, pink, Japanese, purses (and man, it is a PAIN walking around all those jinjas in Japan without a bottle of H20 that fits into your little bag), and I don’t drink that much water anyway.
So I got the bottle in the mail. The packaging was very nicely done; neutral tones and kinda had that MUJI recycled style.
But when I touched the plastic of the bottle, I was not too impressed.
The plastic felt sort of thin and honestly just reminded me of a regular Poland Spring water bottle that you can get at a Duane Reade for like $1.69. The impression I got of the plastic from the photographs I’ve seen was, “thick,” “hard,” and, “strong.”
But nevertheless, I thought that the design was cool and it also had my cute, pink little accent, so I was keeping it.
I searched further on Instagram and saw this:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQtrKGsDKVx/
And was like, “OMG that looks soo cool! I want to look like an Instagram narcissist and post pretty, superficial photos like that!!”
So I cut up some strawberries and blueberries and put it in the bottle.
I had issues putting the fruits in though. I can understand why blueberries work in the bottle, but for the strawberries, you definitely need to cut them into very small slices.
And since I don’t really drink water on a regular basis, I decided to put some matcha powder in the bottle with the fruit, to see if I can make a picture-pretty drink.
…the green from the matcha definitely overpowered the reds and dark blues of the fruits, though.
And when I brought this matcha drink of mine to practice one day, Broom said, “That looks like vomit.”
So yeah, no more cold matcha drinks for me.
So I decided to go simple and basically just put water + chia seeds + fresh fruit.
I brought in this new ‘flavored water’ to my RTS class, and everyone around me noticed the water bottle, but also asked,
“Is that a flask?”
….
Well, I guess I know where these people got their inspiration from. The company is also known as, “___ flask, inc.” So I guess that makes sense. But ugh, I didn’t want to be associated with being an alcoholic carrying around a hipster moonshine + fresh fruits cocktail on the streets. So that immediately made me lose the appeal. I guess also the small size of the A5 didn’t help too much with straying away from the classic flask image.
I also noticed that if you want to be an Instagram narcissist with the fruit water, you need to take the picture ASAP, because otherwise the juices from the berries with dissolve by the end of the day, resulting in a not-so-clean-image of your drink.
But nevertheless,
After practice that evening, I took a sip out of this flavored water,
and absolutely LOVED it.
It had a little more flavor compared to regular H20 (duh), but wasn’t super sugary. It made water drinking more bearable and it was also nice to chew on the fruits at the end. It kinda reminded me of a sports drink version of tapioca pearls. It is also helpful for post-practice recovery to get a little bit of carbs from the fruit.
But the next day…
I woke up, opened up my bag, and saw that the memobottle had a HUGE dent in it.
It literally looked like someone did a karate chop to the side of the bottle.
OMG.
I was so worried that my bottle was ruined, because the flimsy, thin, plastic would be more susceptible to holes, so I will always have leakage.
I opened the bottle, and heard a fizzle sound.
…shhhhh.
The fruits fermented.
What an idiot I was, of COURSE fruits would ferment under room temperature in a sealed bottle.
Oh dear…
The bottle did unbend, and I Facebook messaged memobottle to see if they would replace it, because there was nothing on their website nor the packaging that stated the plastic’s sensitivity to fermentation. They of course messaged back weeks later, saying that they couldn’t do it. That was rather disappointing.
But, I guess this light, flimsy, plastic wasn’t as flimsy after all! Although my bottle has a little bit of a dent, there are no leaks and it’s been working swell!
The bottle is hard to clean and hard to dry, so I may invest in their special bottle cleaner sometime in the near future. I am still trying to find the perfect angle to lay my memobottle on to get it to fully dry.
But, the bottle fits nicely with my flat furoshiki in my workout bag. It also fits nicely in the furoshiki while keeping the shape!:
Maybe I can get the A6 bottle so that I can have one that’s the same size and shape as my hakama xD.
So I totally recommend the memobottle if you would like something flat and compact. They also released this new, cute, chibi, A7 size that I’m totally tempted to get:
I’m def tempted to get that and replace the cap to pink, of course, and put it in my clutches whenever I go out.
If you are interested in buying a memobottle, you can buy one here.