Just over ten years ago the world was given Listerine Breath Strips. They seemed to open a proverbial door to a Jetsons world, where we would soon run on treadmills in space, eat purees, and have mints dissolve on our tongues. However, there were no treadmills, and, unless you count smoothies, most of our food doesn’t really come in a puree form. The magic of the Breath Strip was more about the novelty than the delivery.
Now Ben Yu and Deven Soni have followed in the footsteps of accelerated intake of an ultimately unnecessary — but highly addictive — commodity and invented sprayable caffeine, with their product Sprayable Energy. That’s right, you can spray it onto your skin, and your body will absorb the caffeine and take it into your system, almost as though it were LSD. T-minus six months before the FDA tells you that it’s not good to take caffeine through your pores, as though Sean Connery in Goldfinger hadn’t taught us that already. It’s a product for a man or woman on the go, who doesn’t have time for a cup of coffee or any of the other caffeine-infused products, and who loves spraying mysterious substances in black containers onto their skin in public.
(MORE: How Coffee Could Save Your Life)
The product’s philosophy is not too different from Sheets, the tongue strip that delivers caffeine through your tongue, which has been on clearance at Walgreens for a few months now, and for no specific reason. It is most similar, however, to Aeroshot — a product released last year that made an equally large splash — which allowed you to inhale a form of vaporized caffeine. It looked like the drugs Tom Cruise abuses in Minority Report. The FDA released a long letter expressing its concerns about Aeroshot. Then there’s the toothpaste that blasts your mouth with caffeine, because nausea in the morning and a splash of relentless energy right before I go to bed is just what I need.
It apparently does not go without saying that if you require a boost of caffeine so quickly that you cannot afford to spare a moment for a cup of coffee, then perhaps you had better learn more about time management. If coffee or tea isn’t something you have time for, then maybe you’re doing it wrong.
Coffee can lower the risk of certain kinds of cancer, may help protect against Parkinson’s, and is ostensibly good for your liver. Sprayable Energy may be good if you’re looking for a boost right before a cage match and your corner coach is out of Amphetamine. Otherwise, we’d suggest imbibing the old-fashioned way.
(MORE: We Tried These: Mountain Dew Kickstart and Other Morning Beverages)