[Health] Product Review: Unwell Hydration
My product review on the next hottest hydration drink on the market: Unwell Hydration 💧
Hey Daddy Gang,
I mean… Hi Readers! Woah, that was weird.
Today I’m excited to bring you my product review on what I believe will be the next biggest hydration drink for the mass markets: Unwell.
It seems like every celebrity these days is using their personal brand to launch a product these days: George Clooney’s “Casamigos” tequila, Logan Paul’s “PRIME”, Kim Kardashian’s “Skims” — the list goes on.
Today, our founding father 😉 , Alex Cooper is joining the fray.
After a recent Target run desperately searching for an electrolyte drink to restore my body after a weekend with friends, I ran into Unwell on the end of the aisle 📈 💥 and I’m excited to dive into the product today to tell you why Unwell became my favorite new hydration drink on the market & why it’s going to take over as the next big hydration drink.
Specifically, I will be focusing on:
Overview
Performance
Experience
Value
I’ve been ramping up my search for an electrolyte drink or powder that meets my personal goals to introduce into my life lately, so Unwell comes as such a welcome and pleasant surprise.
Let’s get started, I’m getting thirsty… ⬇️
1. Overview
Unwell hydration is an electrolyte and wellness drink that is the brain child of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast host, Alex Cooper. Cooper has garnered quite the “cult following” and vast amounts of wealth, so it makes sense she joins the pack of celebrities to come out with a product. It’s the smart move for someone with such brand-power.
Unwell hydration’s mission statement is the the following:
Unwell is a Gen Z-focused media and lifestyle brand redefining connection. It’s more than just a brand—Unwell is a feeling, a lifestyle, and a home
[…]
Designed for life’s most unwell moments, Unwell Hydration is the ultimate companion to our community’s bold and busy lifestyles, keeping you refreshed and ready to take on anything
Unwell was released by retailers such as Target starting in January of 2025. Since then, it has become available at other leading stores such as Walmart, Kroger, and Meijer.
The product boasts a clean ingredients profile fit for those trying to minimize their intake of harmful ingredients in other hydration products.
Unwell is currently retailing for $2.50 USD.
Flavors: Kiwi Pineapple, Strawberry, Orange Hibiscus, and Mango Citrus.
2. Performance
This is an area that you typically see nutrition products being backed by a strong brand do very poorly — they’re always “all talk, no bite”.
This isn’t the case with Unwell.
The product is seemingly very well formulated, utilizing the optimal 5:1 sodium to potassium ratio similar to one of its counterparts and leading electrolyte powder producer, LMNT, and also includes magnesium to substantiate its legitimacy in being “backed by research”. Moreover, the amounts of each are “in range” for athletes and non-athletes alike: 490mg Sodium, 190mg Potassium, and 60 mg Magnesium. This makes the product versatile for a hangover OR replenishing electrolytes after an intense workout.
Notably, the product also includes B vitamins for sustained energy, 70mg of caffeine as an added bonus for the fiends out there, and is sweetened by Stevia Leaf Extract (a natural, zero-calorie sweetener).
One thing to point out with Unwell, though, is that it does have 4g of cane sugar included. Luckily for most consumers, this wouldn’t make the threshold of being a “sugar drink”, but rather a quick-hit source of glucose to replenish what was lost through exercise or other — this product feature can be seen as a plus OR minus.
Okay, now it’s time for My Take on the product’s performance:
I felt really, really good after drinking Unwell. It had the slightest of electrolyte taste to it, but was largely cut through by the added sugar. The caffeine hit was noticeably there, but came without jitters.
The lasting effects were there too. In the handful of hours after consuming the product I felt like I had great energy and felt replenished (placebo or not, this is important and useful).
Overall, it’s always hard to attribute overall energy levels and feel to one thing or product throughout the course of a day, but it does make it a bit easier to feel the effects of something when you go from not feeling A+ after drinking or a night of poor sleep to truly feeling like you gained that energy back shortly after consuming something to counteract that feeling. That said, I think that was exactly the case for me as a consumer of Unwell.
All in all, Unwell passes the performance test in my book and I look forward to using it in other domains (sport, electrolyte supplement, energy drink, etc.).
3. Experience
Experience, to me, is everything that is relevant to your enjoyment or disliking of a product that isn’t part of it’s core functionality or performance-intentions.
This comes from pieces like the branding, the “snap” of twisting off the cap, the feel of the label, the premium positioning of the product within the retailers, etc.
Not surprisingly, Unwell exceeds in this area. I mentioned before that the performance area is where these products usually underwhelm, but generally speaking, these product outperform in the Experience category.
For me, some notable pieces of the experience were:
Matte feeling of the product labeling
Bright colors to match the vibrancy and flavor of the product making it exciting to drink
Health-centric callouts along the side of the label (e.g., “Essential B-Vitamins” & “Over 700mg of Electrolytes”)
Trendy “bubble-font” that matches the branding of Alex Cooper
Premium ‘aisle-end’ location in retailers
The name, “Unwell”, playing on the fact that this product will make you feel not-Unwell 😉
To restate my opinion clearly, Unwell did not fumble the bag in the Experience category. It didn’t necessarily do anything unique or earth-shattering, but it definitely doesn’t let anyone down.
Stay with me for the value section ➡️
4. Value
Keeping this section short and sweet — how lucky are we that this product is ready-to-drink, high quality, AND only $2.50 USD? Let me answer that for you. Very!
Allow me to skip reiterating why this product provides so much value and compare the price (& relevant considerations) to other leading products to assess value:
LMNT: ~$1 USD, not ready-to-drink, higher electrolyte content may be unneeded for some folks
Gatorlyte: ~$3 USD, has heaps of added sugar, less emphasis on electrolyte content, long ingredient list
Pedialyte: ~$4 USD, plenty of sugar, lesser ‘Experience’, electrolyte concentration poorly formulated
I could go on… but my case here isn’t to bash other products, only show why the $2.50 USD price point for the performance and experience aspects above should be nothing to complain about for most consumers.
Unwell packs a punch in the value category.
‘Nuff said!
You’ve made it to the end and might be asking,”What’s the catch?” or perhaps you think you missed the section about the downfalls… worry none, you read everything right — there just aren’t many areas to pick Unwell as a product a part.
Could I go into how the product could offer a version free of caffeine so I can drink one at night? Sure. Could I say they should lower the total absolute electrolyte count for condition-less consumption (i.e., working out, sick, or after drinking)? Definitely. BUT, these are very individual questions and products need to find a middle-ground somewhere, and I think Unwell found it’s goldilocks — so I’m going to consciously skip over the “this or that” analysis. It’s a solid product.
I hope you enjoyed my product review on Unwell!
As always, don’t just take my word (or anyones!) as the end all be all for your thoughts on this product, go and try it yourself.
Before concluding, I want to give you a challenge: go and try Unwell and report back with your thoughts by dropping a comment, restacking, or DMing me directly — I’d love to hear your review on it.
Want to go a step further? Share a story about how Unwell helped you crawl out of your hangover or post-workout slump 😉
Thanks for reading.
In Learning,
