The Safe Sippy and the Boon Fluid: A Tale of Two New Sippy Cups

We have been testing two new sippy cups over the last couple of weeks, each of which has generated a bit of buzz. One is from a startup responding directly to the bisphenol-A crisis in the bottle and sippy industry, and the other is from a young kids' products company that expanded into the feeding market this season with a largely BPA-free line. Each was also a bit delayed from its original launch date, which helps to pique interest.

Fluid (Boon)

Boon's new Fluid offers the kind of "a-ha" moment that has started to look like a litmus test for the Arizona-based baby products company. Like Boon's new spill-guarded Catchbowl or their Benders utensils, which can be bent over time to adjust towards normalcy as coordination increases, Fluid's design is tightly edited, refreshing in the same ways as a showpiece product from IKEA - a fresh idea pared down to its simplest expression of functionality and made astonishingly cheap. (The Boon Fluid retails for $6.) Without IKEA's monolithic distribution network, things in this product niche generally have to be tarted up a bit to catch the eye of jaded consumers, but Boon generally manages to merge flair and functionality without looking desperate or opportunistic, a rare thing in the world of fashionable baby accessories.

Fluid's donut-shaped cup may be the first thing to catch your attention; although it entails a slight reduction in cleaning efficiency, it is truly ergonomic, achieving the benefit of twin handles with the cup surface itself. But it's the sippy spout that is an exercise in meticulous and high design. Although appearing to be made of a single piece of plastic, it is actually two parts, closely joined: a hard plastic outer shell with a gentle curve, and a softer plastic inner lining with a rubbery give that is sealed seamlessly into the shell.

This lining helps seal the connection between the lid and the cup without the use of a threaded screw (adhering with an unsatisfying smush, but clearly sealing tightly) but it also does all of the work: The outer surface parts at the top in a small, ovoid opening roughly the size and shape of a cat's pupil, but it forms a slight depression rather than a hole because the inner material underlays this opening in a thin, soft membrane with a tiny slit in it that allows liquid to pass through when suction is applied.

The cup has a moderate flow that invites a lot of heavy swigging, but the lusty head-tilting feels well-supported by its ease of handling. Fluid does not drip much when shaken upside down, but as SafeMama humorously observed in her own household, creative users can create a drip-drip-drip effect, which strikes us as a limitation, for sure, when dealing with kids at the "no means not while I'm looking" stage.

The Boon Fluid can be purchased directly from Boon.

The Safe Sippy (KidBasix)

KidBasix was formed to launch a "safer" sippy cup, and has taken on a lot of big players with its new Safe Sippy. But while pressure can make diamonds, the process sometimes takes a while. This new stainless-steel cup, conceived and brought to market specifically to offer a BPA-free alternative for parents looking for high-quality, long-lasting sippy cup they knew would be safe for their children, brings some significant innovations to the table. We also have some reservations about it, which we'll explain as well.

The first innovation in the Safe Sippy is the most obvious: its stainless-steel construction combined with a rubber-like plastic sheath. If the Safe Sippy had met its planned launch in early September, it would have beaten even the first-in-silicone Wee-go to the market, and glass is, in fact, quite durable, as we discussed in our review of Wee-go competitor Silikids - silicone-like materials offer even more practical benefit when enveloping stainless steel, which both dents relatively easily and conducts excessive heat and cold unless designed with a double wall and a vacuum seal, in which case you can't beat the Thermos Foogo, which has strong plastic bumpers to protect its sippy (and too-weak ones on its straw cup). One better would be the use of a material that attracted fewer smudges and less dust; iFrogz, which makes housings for iPods, uses a dust-free silicone that works well (we reviewed that product here).

The sippy's handles, like those in many other bottle and sippy cups, are on an O-ring held in place by the sippy lid. The screw lid is itself a bit of a curiosity; unlike Thermos' one-and-a-half loop screw thread and Klean Kanteen's several-turn thread, KidBasix has come up with a whisper of a thread that is simply two near-semicircles indented on opposite sides of its top, which match up with a tight, several-layer-deep plastic threading on the inside of the cap. We mention that purely for the technically-obsessed (you know who you are). We'd offset that technical praise with a mild tsk-tsk over the lid design, which looks like two parts but is actually one. As big form-and-function folks, we wondered if a unified lid design, which communicates that it cannot (and need not!) be taken apart for cleaning, would serve the Safe Sippy better.

We appreciate the one-piece valve design (as opposed to the two or three pieces in other brands). The cup leaks very little - none at all when left on its side, and not much when shaken hard upside down, and the seal on the screw lid is very good. Flow is moderate, and probably best for young toddlers.

The spout design is an unfortunate miss. Its tubelike protrusion and its angle are highly suggestive of a straw, but the sippy must be tipped to drink from it, which makes the angle of the straw an inconvenience unless the cup is held with the straw angled away from the user, which is counterintuitive. That said, this cup does offer some of the same benefit of a straw cup in encouraging mouth formations that support speech development.

For the Safe Sippy's price of $15, it faces strong competition in the Foogo, which will be relevant for the same year or two the Safe Sippy would be in use, and the Klean Kanteen, whose small bottle can adapt to your child's growth for years with a swapped-out spout. Both of these alternatives leak more than the Safe Sippy, but they both work a little better, too, when it comes to actually drinking out of them. Thermos' Foogo offers a double-walled, vacuum sealed construction; when faced with temperature extremes, Z carries her Klean Kanteen in a coozy.

The Safe Sippy is available online from The Soft Landing, which has a 10% off coupon code for ZRecs readers running in our Coupon Codes section (look below the ad stack in the lefthand sidebar), valid through January 3.

Feeling lucky?

Thanks to Boon for donating the Fluid and to The Soft Landing and KidBasix for donating our review Safe Sippys. Maybe you'll be thanking them, too - we have one new Safe Sippy and a new Boon Fluid to give away! The Fluid comes in a single style, and the Safe Sippy up for grabs is a cornflower blue.

For a chance to win, email us at zrecommends (at) gmail (dot) com before 11:59 p.m. CST on Wednesday, Dec. 19 with "Sippy Giveaway" in the subject line and tell us which one you'd like, and include your mailing address. We'll pick one winner for each and notify them via email on Thursday.

No purchase necessary to enter. Void where prohibited. Only U.S. addresses are eligible for this giveaway.

This giveaway is now closed. For more great giveaways, visit PRIZEY.net today!