The Right Cup: Flavor-Enhancing Water Cup

The Right Cup claims that impregnating its plastic lip with fragrance will cause you to drink more water, because the scent will trick your brain into thinking you’re not drinking water. Unfortunately, the reviews reveal the fact that this doesn’t actually work in practice.

You might click, and see the bevy of five-star reviews saying “It definitely works,” but this is a read-between-the-lines scenario. Note that all the five-star reviews are glowing, long, and all touch on the manufacturer’s line items. They all specifically say the product has made them quit drinking sugar, that it tastes good, that it makes them drink more water, and that it’s good for children as well as adults. And the majority of the five-star reviews end with a punch like “[Buy] a two pack today and use them for yourself and gift the other one.”

Now, take a trip through the one-star reviews. They’re brief, not full of superlatives, point out the cup is the size of a child’s sippy cup, complain that the cup stinks up their cupboard, doesn’t make water taste like juice, and so on. One of them even points out that using this cup is enough to disprove the idea that a scented cup tricks your brain into thinking it’s not drinking water.

The most tell-tale of the one-stars, though, is a lengthy, crushing review where the customer rats out the seller for offering them a refund if they retract their review, and pastes in the actual email from the seller asking them to do this.