SHAMELESS PROPAGANDA
I’ve been working hard to take good care of my body, lately: eating as best I can, drinking lots of water, getting good exercise, and sleeping as well as I can.
Water is the one that I’m most pumped about today. I’ve been looking into water bottles for a few months (I try to be an informed consumer), because I’d heard so much about regular plastic and even Nalgenes being unhealthy in the long-run. I’d been a Nalgene fan for years (I had four different bottles by them), but didn’t want to drink toxic water anymore.
The first alternative I learned about was Sigg- made of aluminum, cool designs on the bottles, eco-friendly… good! Not so good: the coating on the inside has been targeted as a potential hazard (I don’t know the specifics, really, but a coating on the inside of a water bottle seems counter-intuitive). Then I learned about Klean Kanteen, made of stainless steel with no coating–simple bottle design, but I dig simple. Priced about the same as the Sigg, I was confident I had found my bottle-to-be.
My stepmom has a Klean Kanteen, so I asked her where in the area I could find one. As she was telling me, my dad jumped in and said “Oh! I have a water bottle you could have!”
“A Klean Kanteen?”
“No, but it’s stainless steel.”
So I checked it out… boy oh BOY did I check it out. I took this thinksport bottle for a spin over the past two days:
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I am floored about this water bottle. Never have I met a water bottle so successful at being a water bottle.
(DISCLAIMER: I KNOW I AM A HUGE NERD)
Why is this bottle so great? I’ll tell you why.
1) It’s attractive.
2) It has both a large and small opening for different styles of drinking (see above images).
3) It has a little mesh filter (not pictured) that fits inside the top so the ice doesn’t come sloshing out, or if you brewed some loose leaf tea in it, you’d be all set to drink it without getting tea leaves in your mouth, OR if you decided to use it as a cocktail shaker, you’d be TOTALLY set.
4) It’s double-walled stainless steel–both durable and effectively insulating*.
*This I know from my trial run with the thinksport. Yesterday, around noon, I filled up my thinksport with ice cubes and the rest with water. I didn’t drink much out of it, but took a small sip around 7pm. Holy cow! The water was still icy cold! I left it in my car overnight, and when I returned today around noon, I took another sip. ICE COLD. Wait a minute… what’s that sound? Are those ice cubes in my bottle? After 24 HOURS there were 3 or 4 ice cubes still remaining in my thinksport!! Amazing. AMAZING. This bottle and I have quite the future together.
I am absolutely astounded at technology. I am looking at the world in a totally different way. I commend you, thinksport, for being so damn awesome: you have changed the way I look at bottles and it is GOOD, so good.
I’m bummed I bought a Sigg last week!
Well, the people I know that have them love them. I don’t know much about the real risks of them, as I said. I read somewhere that the coating prevents a metallic taste, so maybe you’ve got a leg up.
“different styles of drinking”
nice turn of phrase.
I loved your Think Sport review! I have access to every stainless water bottle in existence and there’s is literally no other bottle that compares to them.
I’ve always refused to carry a handbag, but since I fell in love with my Think Sport bottle, I actually had to go out and buy one to fit it! I don’t go anywhere without it.
You aren’t exaggerating about having ice left after 24 hours either. We’ve had customers report the same success even in the most extreme conditions.
We’ll be linking to your review from our blog
Pingback: Think Sport Stainless Steel Bottle Review « The Soft Landing Blog
Thank you for reading, Alicia!
I’m the opposite… I’ve always carried a purse around, usually a big one, so I can stuff it with things like water bottles or raincoats when i need them. My Think Sport has (of course!) earned its way in there.
Thanks so much for the link!! I’m not quite at the point where I’m thinking about having children yet, but hopefully Soft Landing will still be there when I am. I see Think Sport has a Think Baby bottle… I’ll certainly be keeping that in mind!
Do NOT buy the ThinkSport bottle.
I bought two, and while they’re certainly cool looking and well-insulated, they’re very poorly designed. Within three months, I had problems with this bottle. This was via casual, around-the-house and at-the-office use, not from climbing El Cap with it.
Here are the problems: 1. the tab on the top of the small cap came loose, rendering the tether ineffectual; 2. the coating on the silver bottle started peeling away; 3. the worst issue: the metal cover over the main cap became separated from the cheap, plastic cap under it, making it nearly impossible to get the bottle open without just spinning the cover ’round and around over the un-budging cap.
After this I wrote to Kevin Brodwick, the founder of the company. He refused to let me return the bottles, telling me, “We only accept returns for defective products within the first 30 days.” Thus, while tacitly acknowledging that my bottle was in fact defective, he refused to stand behind his company’s $20 water bottle because I’d had it for more than a month. LAME.
I’m buying a Sigg instead.
DO NOT buy this!! Buy the Thermos line, which offers the same insulation, BPA-free benefits without the added bonus of RUST. My ThinkSport bottle arrived with a smattering of rust spots around the outside mouthpiece. After returning and exchanging the unit for a pristine one, I was disappointed that within a month, my second bottle also had rust not only on the exterior, but in the interior as well. Despite vigorous scrubbing with a bottle brush and a few runs in the dishwasher, the rust spots remain, adding a very rusty flavor to my water. BPA-free it may be, but what is the safety of ingesting rusty water?!! I want my money back . . .
Yikes… these not-so-hot-comments are discouraging. At least we’re having a healthy water-bottle dialogue! Perhaps I’ll post an update on my ThinkSport experience after a few months.
Dear thinksport customers –
We sent Kyle a new top to the sports bottle on July 2nd.
We emailed Sumiko on the 23rd (7:31am) to have her return the bottles to us.
We do indeed have a 30 day policy which is the same as Klean Kanteen. But that’s about the extent that we follow other company standard practices.
The attention to detail in making sure that these products are safe of harmful chemicals is enormous. But, it’s not enough for us to just create a safe product. It is important to us that we are always looking for ways to improve the bottle. Many companies quietly make changes to their products without a consumers knowledge. We operate quite differently. I created this company, because large companies were not actively doing the “right thing”. For this reason, we always welcome feeback and suggestions –> info@thinksportbottles.com
Given the amount of very positive feedback that we receive directly, we feel like we’re on the way to creating the best product on the market. Frankly, there are only a handful of companies in the world that are focused on doing the right thing for the consumer world. We endeavor to be part of the solution and our first steps are indeed through thinkbaby and thinksport.
Warmest Regards,
Kevin Brodwick
founder
thinkbaby
thinksport
I love my ThinkSport bottle! I don’t know why in the world anyone would buy anything else after experiencing ThinkSport. I’ve had my bottle for nearly a year and have had no problems. The mesh filter is wonderfully handy and the insulation effectiveness is unparalelled. Not to mention the fact that it’s BPA-free. I highly recommend this product!!
I never expected to have such a spirited dialogue about thinksport bottles! My thinksport bottle is lost somewhere in my boxes… with water in it. I haven’t seen it in a few weeks. I will post an update once I find the bottle and see how it held up!
Thanks to all of you for your comments.
UPDATE: My thinksport bottle continues to be excellent. No significant problems to speak of. I still love it, four months after I started using it.