Balance Water: Cleanse (2014)

Balance “Cleanse” is a product that takes one of today’s emerging functions -- albeit one that is typically synonymous with juice -- and applies it to bottled water. To accomplish this, the company has added a variety of extracts that were inspired by Australian “bush medicine,” including papaya, she-oak, bottlebrush and bush iris. None of these ingredients impact the flavor, which is certainly a good thing in terms of the drinking experience. However, it does make the function feel a bit less tangible than if it were something that you can taste. Regardless, it seems like a function that’s in line with why someone would drink a bottle of water. That said, we like the look of the package, which relies on a blue and white palette and features a cleanly arranged front panel. You can certainly pick it up and quickly understand what it’s for, but to understand how it works, you’ll need to turn to the back panel. Still, we think that the prominence of the word “cleanse” on the front of the bottle should be sufficient when it comes to pulling in trial users. Overall, an innovative concept with very nice execution.