Airup Little Luxury Bundle Review
DISCLOSURE -THIS ITEM WAS GIFTED TO THE REVIEWER FOR THE PURPOSES OF WRITING THE REVIEW. ALL THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS ARE THE REVIEWER’S OWN.
Reviewed by Helen Wyatt
I recently received an Airup Little Luxury Bundle to review, consisting of a 700ml Airup tumbler in light lavender, three ice tea peach flavour pods, and a cute candle too. We were excited to try the Airup as we hadn’t used one before, so it was out of the box as soon as it arrived and tested straightaway.
The tumbler design is sturdily built, made of stainless steel. It fits nicely in the hand. The lid is leakproof but you have to remove the straw. We tested this and it does seem to be leakproof. The 2-in-1 lid also has the option of standard non-straw drinking too. The tumbler is dishwasher safe and BPA free, and cup-holder compatible with Double-wall vacuum insulation to keep drinks colder for longer.
Now onto the actual technology that Airup is known for – scent-based flavouring. If you’ve never heard of it, you take a scent pod, put it over the straw, then when you drink water, you get a hint of flavour too. Airup tells us that most of our taste actually comes from scent so they have capitalised on this, creating a bottle that adds flavour to water without adding any actual ingredients.
It works through the straw’s rubber top having a small hole in the side. This allows air to bubble through, carrying the scent from the pod to your mouth. The scented air then travels to your olfactory region and tricks your brain into thinking the water is flavoured.
So does it actually work? From reading other reviews, the Airup technology relies on whether the scent trick works for each individual brain, so there is no guarantee that it would work for you. When we tried it, we could definitely taste peach but it had no sweetness to it at all. For some of the family the flavour immediately disappeared so they could no longer taste it, and for some the flavour stayed. We were not keen on the peach ice tea flavour, but didn’t test any others to be able to compare. The bubbling sensation in the straw is also strange, as it reminded me of when I have used straws in the paste and they have accidentally had a hole in. I imagine you could get used to the sensation, particularly if you enjoyed the flavour, but it wasn’t something I really liked.
That said, it is clever technology and if you found a flavour you liked then it would be a great way to add more to your daily water intake. Three pods last for around 15 litres of water too, so you’ll get flavour for some time. My daughter continues to use the bottle and straw without the pod, and puts her finger over the hole so the straw works “normally”. She says she really likes how it is made, but just doesn’t enjoy the scent technology.
I think it is possibly a bit of a hit or miss gimmick but could really see it working for some people, especially those who hate the taste of water and don’t like sweet drinks. I think my brain was expecting it to be sweet, and coupled with the bubbling it just wasn’t for me.
The candle that came with the set is cute. It doesn’t have a strong scent but it was nice to light for the ambiance.
Rating: 3/5
The bundle I was sent to review doesn’t appear to be available any longer on the Airup website however you can purchase the Airup tumbler and scent pods from: https://shop.air-up.com/gb/en
RRP of the 700ml tumbler with 3 scent pods is £29.99