I did a review on Purist water bottles, by Specialized, a couple of years ago. The review can be found here. Since that review, I have used nothing but Purist and Camelback water bottles. If I had more Purist bottles, I would use them exclusively. Just like the last review, I was not very enthused about reviewing insulated bottles. Every insulated bottle that I have owned was very hard to squeeze which caused a lot of frustration. I took a Camelback insulated bottle to a triathlon to jettison at a water stop. The bottle was so hard to squeeze, I did not get much water on that section of the race. I was glad to be rid of the thing but the drama that I created during a race had me avoid insulated water bottles for a while.
The Purist insulated bottle is easy to squeeze! It is so easy to squeeze that I had to examine the bottle after I tried it for the first time. I could tell that it was insulated but I could not really feel the insulation barrier. The volume of insulation makes the bottle one ounce smaller than the standard 24 ounce bottle but that is okay. I filled the water bottle up with ice water at work one day and still had cold water when I got home 90 minutes later. Every time I rode home from work with a standard bottle, my water was warm when I got home. We had a very warm winter here with temperatures typically reaching the upper 50’s or low 60’s (14c-18c) in the afternoons.
In addition to the insulation the bottle has the standard Purist interior and cap. I can’t say enough good things about the “Purist silicon infusion”. I thought tea bags infused water with tea flavor. I can’t imagine how Purist infuses silicon dioxide into or onto plastic. It does not matter if I know how they do it, as long as it works. My bottles are always clean. The only time there is a left over flavor is when I don’t clean the cap properly. The cap is advertised to pop off with a tug and a twist but that does not work for me.
What I like about the bottle:
- It is easy to squeeze
- The smooth interior that is easy to clean and does not hold odor
- The cool cap that does not let water leak out. You squeeze the cap to open a diaphragm to let the water out. It works great.
- The insulation works very well. I have not tried it on a 100 degree day yet but time will tell.
- The bottles are BPA free
What I don’t like:
- The cap is hard to take apart for cleaning
- The price is too high to build up a good collection
I really like this water bottle. The standard plastic bottles always have me wondering about the plastic leaching into the water that I drink. I don’t get that impression from the Purist bottle.