Everyone knows water is a necessity. But in the LA heatwave we are experiencing at the moment, it really is a necessity. In the last two days, I have filled my owala water bottle what seems like hundreds of times, probably due to the fact I can’t bring myself to lug around anything more than a 24 oz bottle. I have also had to face the fact that the other 15 guys I live with have the EXACT SAME bottle. Not exaggerating. Through multiple trips to the fridge and accusations of misplacing or snatching someone else’s precious water, I arrived on this fine Sunday fresh with the idea of the water bottle in my mind. So, let’s talk about them.

When one finally gets tired of buying plastic water bottles on a daily basis, the usual progression is to buy a reusable one. But in any giver year, there always seems to be a new “it” bottle. Some notable ones:

• Pre 2010: The Nalgene bottle. Wide mouth, plastic bottle, my parents had numerous. (I have one too they are pretty good).

• 2010s: Camelbak bottles. Plastic construction with a straw lid that let you sip out of it and operate with one hand.

• 2016: The S’well Bottle. Steel bottle that had an innovative vaccum wall design that kept the temperature stable of the liquid inside.

• 2018: Hydro Flasks. Pretty much the same thing, hyped brand, different colors. Maybe slightly better performance in maintaining temperatures.

• 2020: Yeti Bottles. The same thing, even more hyped brand, less colors and a straw lid.

• 2022: The Stanley Cup. Literally every girl at my high school had one of these. Straw cup with the steel vacuum design implemented.

• Present: The Owala bottle. Same thing, but this time has a straw and wide mouth, adding more optionality.

All of these options throughout the years are great, durable bottles that look pretty good and in later iterations did a pretty good job of keeping ice in your water during these heatwave periods like current. If you had one of them, there would be near no need to replace them. Yet, of these seven bottles, I have owned 6.

Why I felt the need to get them? Well that depends. I rarely lose things, although that quality seems to not extend to water bottles. A few left the usual way (left at the gym, lost in a classroom with 200 people), but sometimes I would find myself sold by the promise of a new best water bottle, or wanting one that fit the current trend.

So does the new “it bottle” stand atop the rest? Bottom line is kind of. It holds water, and it keeps it cold, which at the moment is pretty close to perfection. Any of the last 4 bottles can do that too. Other than having both a straw and a wide mouth, there is zero difference in performance here.

It is also interesting to look at the trends of when these bottles were popular. It seems to follow the classic phenomenon of supply and demand, where people chase these bottles to hop on a trend and look the part, but then the market delivers enough to end customers and everyone seems to have one, opening the possibility of competitors entering the market promising something revolutionary once more. I would bet my last 7 bottles that the next one will not be materially different or noticeably better. What I will acknowledge is by that point, I will be sick of using the same bottle that probably needed to be washed a day or two ago and that gets lost amongst all my roommates identical bottles; and ready to upgrade to the latest and greatest.

Rational? No. Probable? highly.

Anyway, I wrote this while drinking out of my Owala, or possibly someone else’s. No way to tell. This water is ice cold though let me tell ya.