2 min readJust when you think you’ve seen everything in vape technology, you find Bliz: A Micro Mist Hydrator. It’s a vape. For water.
Across the Kickstarter page, Bliz is hailed as a “hydration solution”. It claims to quickly quench your thirst by using a fine, aerosol mist, and to provide targeted hydration to your skin, nose, and throat using the same mechanism. Only with its proprietary liquid capsules that is.
While a humidifier (which this ultimately is, albeit a mini one) can be helpful for dry skin and throats, a small spray won't do much. Experts recommend using a humidifier for 6-8 hours, to see results, which is a far cry from what Bliz offers.
From an overall hydration perspective, claiming a liquid capsule carrying 2.5ml of flavoured water would stave off oral dehydration sure is a stretch. How much water we need to drink per day varies by source, and by person, but the overall consensus is that an adult needs at least two litres per day for adequate hydration. Meaning you’d need to pump through around 800 of Bliz’s XEM (pronounced gem) Flaverage (as in flavoured beverage) liquid capsules each day for it to have a meaningful impact. Based on the featured subscription imagery on the Kickstarter page, that looks like that would cost around $2,720 USD. You could probably buy a few extra water bottles with that instead.
The page also concentrates on times when it may be “difficult to drink water”, citing how annoying it is to run with a water bottle (a fair point), and air travel as its main examples. Flying can be uncomfortable, but I don’t think I’ve ever been on a plane so cramped that it was difficult to drink water. Sure climbing over people to get to the bathroom is a pain, but it isn’t bad enough to deter me from sipping on a water bottle. Moreover, the Bliz is a vaping device, and therefore not allowed to be used on planes anyway.
E-cigarettes, and other personal vaporisers are considered ‘Dangerous goods’ due to their lithium-ion batteries, and are subsequently viewed under the same restrictions as cigarettes.
These can not be recharged, or used on board an aeroplane under the penalty of imprisonment, and a fine of up to 50 penalty units in Australia. In NSW that equals around $5,500, but a Perth man got stung with a $16,800 fine for smoking on a plane back in 2021.
Bliz isn’t shipping to Australia for obvious legal reasons, but it is available in the United States, Netherlands, Norway, Taiwan, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Singapore, Ireland, United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Poland, France, and Hong Kong. All places that hold similar penalties for smoking and vaping on planes. In the US you could cop a $2,200 USD fine for example. It’s a high price to pay for a puff of moist air.
The whole thing reminds me of a Parks & Recreation bit. In season six, Leslie and Tom are trying to convince Pawnee to add fluoride to the drinking water, and in true Tom Haverford style the pair rebrand it to T-Dazzle with the pitch,
“It’s not a chemical. It’s an aquatic-based, social media oral experience.”
Bliz’s Kickstarter pitch isn’t dissimilar, posing the question,
“What if there was another way to stay hydrated, without drinking water?”
