There are a lot of fake Hydro Flasks out there for sale, usually selling for a lot cheaper than a regular Hydro Flask. They look extremely similar and you may be wondering is my Hydro Flask Fake?
I went out there and intentionally bought 2 fake Hydro Flasks in order to compare them to my real Hydro Flasks and show you how to know if you Hydro Flask is real or not.
Your Hydro Flask is likely fake if the writing on the bottom is engraved (not printed) and is all in capital letters, if the logo doesn’t look quite right or if it is in a color/size Hydro Flask never made.
Fake Hydro Flasks are still made from 18/8 stainless steel and should be safe to drink from and they still perform as well as a real Hydro Flask when it comes to holding ice or keeping drinks hot.
Is My Hydro Flask Fake? Quick Things To Check
If you suspect that your Hydro Flask is fake there are a few quick things you can check to see whether or not your Hydro Flask is a fake.
1. The Text on The Bottom
Probably the most obvious way to tell whether you have an authentic Hydro Flask or a fake one is the text on the bottom.
I did a full article on the differences between fake and real Hydro Flask bottoms.
In short:
Fake Hydro Flasks
- Writing is etched/engraved into the paint showing the stainless steel underneath
- Writing is all in capital letters with the exception of “oz” and “ml” (ps. ml should be written as mL…just another indicator of it’s fakeness)
- Only has size, “DESIGNED IN BEND,OR” and “18/8 STAINLESS STEEL”
Real Hydro Flasks
- Writing is printed onto the bottom in white or black ink. It is not etched in.
- Writing is in a mixture of upper and lower case letters
- Has dots between each statement
- Has printed the size, model number, “HydroFlask.com”, “TempShield Insulation” and “Made in China”
2. The Logo Text Design
If you’re just looking at a fake Hydro Flask it can be hard to tell if the font is correct or not but when you compared a real Hydro Flask to a fake one it’s pretty each to see if your Hydro Flask is fake.
In the image above the white Hydro Flask is real and the pink one is fake.
Look for a strange sized gap between the y and the d in “Hydro” as the biggest giveaway.
The real Hydro Flasks don’t have this gap and the fake ones do.
The r in “Hydro” also looks quite different in the real version compared to the fake version.
Study the image above and see what your logo looks like and you should see if your Hydro Flask is fake or not.
The logo illustration of the jumping man is more difficult to tell real from fake.
The new Hydro Flasks shunk the logo image and removed the registered trademark (R) but the old authentic Hydro Flasks had the same size logo image with the (R) as the fake ones do.
So it’s not the best way to tell a real Hydro Flask from a fake one.
See real Hydro Flasks at HydroFlask.com
3. The Color/Size Combination
Some color combinations that are being sold as “real” are actually color combinations that Hydro Flask have never released.
Black/White or Black/Red are perfect examples of this.
Hydro Flask has never made or released these colors. If you own these colors then you know that your Hydro Flask bottle is definitely fake.
You can look at my full list of old Hydro Flask colors to see every color that has been released if you aren’t quite sure.
It gets a bit trickier when there is a limited edition color that Hydro Flask did release at some point.
The image above shows my 2 fake Hydro Flasks on the right and the 2 real Hydro Flasks on the left.
Hydro Flask did release these colors but only in a 40 oz (my bottles are 32 oz).
They also were released with colored lids, whereas my fake Hydro Flasks only come with black lids.
So this is how I know without a doubt that these Hydro Flasks are completely fake.
4. Packaging
Real Hydro Flasks will come in a white sleeve that says “Repurpose me. Recycle me.”
Fake Hydro Flasks will come in a white box and wrapped in bubble wrap instead of the white sleeve.
Other Ways To Tell If Your Hydro Flask is Fake
There are a lot of other smaller ways to tell whether or not your Hydro Flask is fake. I did a full list of 12 ways to spot a fake Hydro Flask where I go into more detail, but here are the main things to look for.
Price – If you got your Hydro Flask for a large discount when it wasn’t during a sale period like a Black Friday sale then your Hydro Flask may be fake.
Seller Reputation – If you bought your Hydro Flask from a reputable seller like HydroFlask.com or Amazon.com or REI or some other reputable store it’s likely real. If you got it from a dodgy looking website or Ebay/Craigslist seller it’s probably fake.
Printed Leaflet – Real Hydro Flasks come with a printed leaflet inside. Fake ones come with no printed leaflet.
Printed Sleeve – The printed sleeves of fake a real Hydro Flasks are very similar, but real Hydro Flasks has 3 languages on it whereas fake ones only display english.
Barcode Sticker – My real Hydro Flask had a barcode that stated copyright 2020 (the year I bought the Hydro Flask). The fake one said copyright 2016 and had the wrong color (Lava) stated on the sticker.
New Neck Design – The new Hydro Flask has a elongated flat neck design compared to the old rolled neck design. The new Hydro Flasks use this design but the fake ones don’t (yet).
How Do You Know If Your Hydro Flask is Real?
It can be pretty easy to compare a fake Hydro Flask to a real one and see that it is obviously fake.
But what if you have what you think is an authentic Hydro Flask. How do you ACTUALLY know if it’s real?
Again it comes down to looking at a lot of the same things we did when we asked whether or not your Hydro Flask was fake.
You know if your Hydro Flask is real if you bought it from a reputable dealer, it has the printed (not etched) text in the bottom and the Hydro Flask logo looks correct. Plus there are a few other checks you can do.
On top of what we talked about here are a couple of extra ways to tell if your Hydro Flask is real or not.
Seller Reputation – One of the main ways I relied on knowing if my Hydro Flask was real was where I bough it from. I purchased mine directly from Hydro Flask which made me confident in its authenticity.
Amazon and reputable physical stores are the other places I would feel comfortable buying a Hydro Flask and knowing that it’s real.
Emailing Hydro Flask – Hydro Flask have an email address dedicated to spotting fake Hydro Flasks and stopping those people from selling them. You can email [email protected] with pictures of your Hydro Flask to see if it’s real. Though I did this over 2 weeks ago and still no response.