Bottled water field guide
What's in your bottled water?
Find a brand, compare its source and packaging profile, then inspect what a third-party lab actually tested. Our grades are estimates, not measurements of contaminants in your bottle.
Popular brands
The bottle index / 12 profiles
Choose with the evidence in view.
HU scores are estimated source and packaging profiles, not contamination measurements or safety ratings. A higher score does not mean a tested bottle is contaminant-free. Lab findings, when linked, describe a particular tested sample and panel.
These rankings use Hydrology University’s own category estimates. They are not Oasis scores. How Oasis scores its separately tested reports
What your report card covers
HU grades summarize estimated profiles, not safety or measured contaminants. Each category links to further reading.
Source Transparency
Where the water actually comes from — a protected spring, an artesian aquifer, or purified municipal tap water — and how clearly the brand discloses it.
Treatment & Processing
How the water is handled before bottling. Filtration and reverse osmosis change mineral content; the process alone cannot establish which contaminants remain in a specific bottle.
Mineral Content
The dissolved minerals (calcium, magnesium, electrolytes) measured as TDS. Natural minerals add taste and benefit; heavy purification strips them out.
Additives & Enhancements
Anything added back after treatment — salts, electrolytes, or minerals for taste, plus ionization to raise pH. Sometimes genuinely helpful, sometimes just marketing.
pH Balance
How acidic or alkaline the water is on a 0–14 scale. pH affects taste and corrosion, but a higher pH alone does not show that water is safer.
Heat & Storage Resilience
How well the packaging survives the trip to you — weeks in trucks, warehouses, and store shelves, then days in a hot car. Heat and sunlight make plastic leach antimony and plasticizers into the water long after it left a spotless bottling line.
Microplastic Risk
Small plastic particles can enter water from packaging, caps, processing and the environment. Packaging is a risk clue, not a measurement of particles in this bottle.
Sustainability
The environmental footprint of the packaging and shipping — single-use plastic and long-distance transport carry the heaviest impact.
HU Grade
An estimated average of eight source and packaging profile categories; not a lab test.
Watch: The pH Spectrum
Bottled alkaline water is typically labeled at about pH 8 to 10; in healthy people the lungs, kidneys and blood buffers keep blood at 7.35 to 7.45 regardless of the water you drink, and Harvard Health and Mayo Clinic report little credible evidence of benefit over plain water. Questions about your health are best taken to your doctor.
Watch on YouTube · Read the full guide: The pH Spectrum: From Your Blood to Your Tap
WaterVO is an independent seller of water products. Hydrology University is a publisher and referral source, not the seller.