When you’re buying a reusable bottle, one of the first decisions you’ll have to make is whether to get a narrow mouth or wide mouth bottle.  Virtually all bottle brands have narrow mouth and wide mouth options, so this is something you’ll need to think about whether you’re looking to buy a Hydro Flask, Nalgene, or any of the countless other bottle brands on the market today.  We’re going to review the main factors you should be thinking about when making your decision.  And spoiler alert, we have a pretty strong opinion on this one.

Please note that some bottle brands have different terminologies.  For example, Hydro Flask has a “standard mouth,” and that’s what we would classify as a narrow mouth design. 
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One of the most common reasons that someone might prefer a narrow mouth is that it’s easier to take sips of your drink, and this is certainly true with the base bottle.  With wide mouth bottles it’s not uncommon to take a sip of water and accidentally splash yourself in the face.  Then don’t be surprised when your friends and family make an Airplane reference about having a drinking problem.  Narrow mouth bottles help prevent this issue.

But if you have a wide mouth bottle, you can easily avoid this problem by purchasing a different style lid, like a straw, sip, or chug style.  For Hydro Flasks, see our videos reviewing their Flex Straw and Flex Sip lids to take a closer look.  Or get a splash guard, like a SplashPro for Hydro Flasks, or Guyot or Watergate for Nalgenes.
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So all-in-all, there’s not much of a difference here between narrow and wide mouth bottles, other than the small cost you might run into if you’re buying a different lid or splash guard.

First off, regardless of which bottle you use, we highly recommend getting a bottle brush to help make cleaning your big bottle more easy.  But in general, you’ll find narrow mouth bottles more difficult to clean than wide mouth bottles.

Narrow mouth bottles limit the size of a bottle brush you can fit, and with smaller brushes, the bristles usually aren’t long enough to easily reach the spot where the bottle widens just under the neck.  Wide mouth bottles can fit bigger brushes with longer bristles, so it’s easier to clean this area.
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So when it comes to ease of cleaning, wide mouth bottles are the clear winners.

Many people like to add ice or flavorings to their water to change things up, but if you get a narrow mouth bottle, you’re really limiting what you can do.  Adding ice is more tedious, and that’s if your ice cubes even fit.  Some bottles, like narrow mouth Nalgenes, have really small openings that don’t even fit most standard ice cubes.  And odds are you won’t have an easy time adding fruit or tea leaves since most infusers won’t fit.  You can add liquid flavorings and flexible tea bags to narrow mouth bottles, but that’s about it.

Wide mouth bottles are much more versatile than narrow mouth bottles.  Its easier to add ice, fruit and tea infusers, and other natural flavorings.  Our FlavorFuze Pod fruit infuser fits great in most wide mouth bottles, and you can fit many common tea infusers as well.  So when it comes to adding ice or other flavorings, wide mouth bottles are better than narrow mouth bottles.

Be sure to check your bottle's mouth diameter before buying an infuser.  But in general, most popular wide mouth bottles tend to have mouth openings that are at least 2.0 inches diameter.  So get infusers that are less than 2" around and you should be good.

​You might be asking if narrow mouth or wide mouth bottles are more expensive, but the opening style really is not much of a factor.  The variables that make the most impact on the bottle cost are the brand and bottle size, not the opening style.

So when it comes to deciding whether narrow or wide mouth bottles are better, our opinion is that wide mouths are the clear winners.  They’re easier to clean, they’re more versatile when it comes to adding ice and flavorings, and you can make it just as easy to take sips as a narrow mouth bottle by getting the right lid or splash guard.

Do you agree with our recommendation?  Let us know!

Congrats, you have a Hydro Flask (or are thinking about getting one soon)!  It's hard enough deciding which Hydro Flask bottle to get, but have you also thought about which lid you'll use?

Hydro Flask has four (4) lids available right now on Amazon: Flex Cap, Flex Sip, Flex Straw, and Straw Lid.

In this video, we go over how each one works, what we like and don't like about each design, and how we use them.

If you'd rather read through the review than watch the video, see the written summary below.

​Hydro Flask has four lid options, and you might be asking which lid is best for you. We've reviewed and tested each lid extensively, and here's what we think.  Links are in the description.

Which one is best for you?  Well, it depends on how you want to use it, but we can tell you how we like to use them.

• We like using a Flex Cap with a SplashPro in our largest bottles when we're doing something active. We find it easier to get smooth pours and bigger gulps of water while also keeping water out of your face.
• For sipping at work or in the car, we like using Flex Straw with a FlavorFuze Straw infuser to add some flavor.
• And for coffee and tea in the morning, we prefer to use the Flex Sip lid with a smaller Hydro Flask like a 16oz.
• The only lid we recommend against using is the original straw lid. If you want a straw lid, just get the Flex Straw.

​Also works with a ​FlavorFuze Straw Infuser

I'll be 35 years old tomorrow, and I've had a soda habit since I was a kid.  Growing up, it wasn't uncommon for me to drink 2, 3, or even 4 sodas per day.  As you might guess, I've also been overweight most of my life too, which is certainly not a coincidence.  But at 35, I finally kicked my soda habit.  I'm down almost 10 pounds this year, and best of all, I feel like what I'm doing is sustainable.

​Here's what's working for me, and hopefully it'll help you on your journey too.

Google Trends - Searches for "Low Sugar" for the Previous Five (5) Years

Of all the ways that consumers regularly ingest sugar, sugary beverages are the primary culprits.  These include:

• Sodas 
• Sports drinks
• Fruit juices
• Energy drinks
• Coffee or tea with added sugar

According to the American Heart Association, the maximum recommended sugar intake is 36 grams of sugar per day for men.  For women, it's 25 grams.  Each one of the drink examples above is either right at those limits or way above them, all from one drink.

Seeing how bottle and can sizes vary, it's also interesting to look at the sugar concentration as shown below.

​One of the more surprising realizations for most people is how most fruit juices really aren't good for you.  Sure they provide some benefits like vitamins and other nutrients, so in that way they are better than sodas.  But the sugar content per ounce for Minute Maid orange juice is essentially the same as a Coke!

There are plenty of people smarter than me that study this topic for their day jobs, so I'll leave it to them to provide additional details and research about sugar and health.  Here are some of the more helpful articles we've read.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Guidance on Added Sugars

WebMD: How Sugar Affects Your Body

American Heart Association: How Much Sugar is too Much?

Healthline: 11 Reasons Why Too Much Sugar is Bad for You

And keep in mind that diet sodas aren't free-and-clear of problems either.  There is growing evidence that drinks with artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose are bad for you as well, as discussed here.

After reading articles about how sugar essentially acts like a poison and how sodas in particular are "empty calories" that provide no nutritional benefit, I knew it was in my best interest to quit.

Each time I tried to change, I would start off a few days or weeks without sodas, but then I would slip and start drinking them again.  The most common backfiring strategies I used were:

• Comforting: "I had a rough day.  A soda will make me feel better."
• Celebrating: "I had a good day.  I'll have a soda to celebrate." (ironic, right?).
• Rationalizing Now vs Future: "I'll have one soda today and get back on the soda diet starting tomorrow."  Or, "I have many more years to develop better habits, so one soda today won't kill me."

The reason that these backfiring strategies worked on me was that I hadn't determined what my real motivation was yet.  I said I wanted to lose weight, and that can work for many people.  But the problem, for me, is that I'm fairly comfortable in my own skin already.  Also, I have always been overweight so it's not easy for me to truly realize how much better I might feel to achieve a healthy weight.  It was more abstract.

But as I got older, something happened.  I started thinking more about how little time we truly have, and how chronic diseases that we always read about and learned of back in school are very real.  And then someone very close to me passed away.  He smoked most of his life, and though he was finally able to quit a few years ago, by then the damage was done.  He developed cancer and passed away earlier this year.  He urged me to improve my habits now and to learn from his life experiences.  This changed my motivational focus.

Honestly, I've used all of the strategies listed above to varying degrees.  But the ones that helped me the most are #1 and #4.  By drinking more water, I've been able to feel fuller and am less likely to drive to the store for a soda.  And by using a flavored drink alternative, I can still take a break from "boring" water each day and satisfy my need for flavor.

This is what's working for me.

Need another bottle?  Check out Hydro Flask's Amazon store.

After debuting just over 10 years ago, Hydro Flasks quickly gained traction as the go-to insulated water bottle.  For many people, the simple benefit of having a bottle that is vacuum-insulated was enough of a selling point.  For others, it's the clean, yet stylish design.  Whatever the reason, Hydro Flask continues to build its following and shows no signs of slowing down.

It's only natural what happened next.  A whole range of accessories have been developed with the goal of making life with these amazing but cumbersome bottles a little easier.

We here at BottlePro got involved in this niche early with our cup holder adapter, so we've seen it grow over the years, including new notable accessories coming available fairly often.  Here are some of our favorites for the best accessories for Hydro Flasks in 2022 (focusing on 32 and 40 ounce bottles).

(As an Amazon Associate, BottlePro earns from qualifying purchases.)

Have you ever been driving along on a hot summer day and need a sip of water, and when you go to take a drink from your wide mouth bottle, all of a sudden you hit a bump in the road?  Or maybe you're the passenger and the driver brakes or accelerates unexpectedly?  More often than not, you may end up with water in your face.  And if anyone else in the car has seen Airplane!, odds are you might hear a snarky comment like "do you have a drinking problem?"

While most major bottle manufacturers do not tend to sell splash guards within their own brands, a number of 3rd party companies have filled the gap (pun intended).  Not only are these great little products for limiting splashes, they can also be used as ice-stoppers.

​The problem is that some splash guards work better with certain bottles.  We're here to help clear up any confusion.