Lemon Perfect Review: Buy It or Just Make Your Own?

Welcome to our Lemon Perfect review!

While people have been squeezing lemons into beverages for thousands of years—the earliest written record of a lemon drink dates as far back as 12th century Egypt—many would agree that the process can get sticky and adds another step to our already busy routines.

As a big fan of lemon water, Yanni Hufnagel knew these struggles all too well, leading him to dream up the idea for Lemon Perfect back in 2017. 

Intrigued by the premise, our team learned more about Lemon Perfect at Expo West and after the show from Richa Anand, Director, Brand Marketing. 

From these conversations and our independent research, we awarded Lemon Perfect with an overall B+ grade, with higher points for quality ingredients and value, but room for improvement in customer service and transparency.

Lemon Perfect Pros and Cons

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Organic Lemon Water

Yanni Hufnagel first got the idea for Lemon Perfect when he was working as an assistant men’s college basketball coach in Nevada.

He was starting his day with organic lemon water but was getting sufficiently annoyed with the messy and time-consuming process of squeezing lemons. 

And as the idea for many businesses begin, that everyday burden blossomed into an idea for adding real lemons to flavored water that both he and his team could benefit from. 

As a bonus, his players got to swap out sugar-laden sports drinks for Lemon Perfect, which is a sugar-free option loaded with antioxidants, vitamin C, and electrolytes. 

Now, Lemon Perfect has moved beyond solely the Original Lemon, currently carrying seven flavors ranging from tropical Dragon Fruit Mango to the sweet-and-sour Kiwi Star Fruit.

As Richa told us, “Lemon Perfect is here to solve the age old issue of hydration being ‘boring.’ Our waters fuse the benefits of real organic lemons with the bold fruit flavor you crave to make a better tasting product that just happens to be better for you as well.”

Now, let’s get into the review. 

Our Lemon Perfect Review

• Quality (A-) 
• Transparency (B-) 
• Website Experience (A)  
• Customer Service (B) 
• Value (A) 
• Brand Value (B+) 

Although Lemon Perfect scored great on quality, value, and website experience, their customer service (or lack thereof) dragged down the score, landing us on an overall B+ grade. 

Quality 

 Quality is obviously an important aspect for any food or beverage brand—and Lemon Perfect definitely has some good things going for them here. 

Starting with the ingredients, each lemon water contains:

• Triple-Filtered Water
• Organic Squeezed Lemon Juice (half of a lemon in each bottle)
• Organic Erythritol (Certified Organic and Non-GMO)
• Organic Natural Flavors (from organic and non-GMO fruit)
• Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid)
• Organic Stevia Leaf Extract

Although they do use natural flavors to get the fruity flavors, they are at least from organic and non-GMO fruit, and all products have freshly squeezed lemon juice totaling half of an organic lemon per bottle.

Regarding nutrition, each 12oz bottle has 5 calories, 0g of sugar, and 9g of sugar alcohol from erythritol. 

On the micronutrient side of things, each bottle packs 90mg of vitamin C (100% of the RDA for men and 120% for women) and electrolytes in the form of potassium. 

While the merits of erythritol and stevia can be debated, they are a humongous step above guzzling dozens of grams of sugar, as is seen in leading sports drinks or “nutrient” waters.

Lemon Perfect also has a handful of impressive certifications (we’ve reviewed a lot of brands, and we know these can be tough to maintain), including:

• Certified Organic
• Non-GMO Project Verified
• Keto Certified
• Certified Gluten-Free
• Certified Vegan
• Certified Carbon and Plastic Neutral 

However, the only things keeping us from a perfect score here are that we don’t know anything about the supply chain or their manufacturing processes.

As they told us, “The brand is currently in the middle of working through changes to their manufacturing process so they are unable to answer the questions related to that at this time.”

Lemon Perfect Product Catalog

In addition to its original lemon, Lemon Perfect also carries four other refreshing flavors: Kiwi Star Fruit, Pineapple Coconut, Blueberry Acai, and Strawberry Passion Fruit. 

Transparency

Like quality, consumers tend to be fans of transparency, which can encompass everything from product or ingredient information and founder stories to supply chains and ease of finding policies. 

Lemon Perfect had some great attributes here, including their transparency on the details of each ingredient, including an ability to hover over each one and learn more about it, as you’ll see an example of with this screenshot showing the details about their natural flavors: 

However, transparency was lacking when it came to brand backstory—there’s not even a typical “About Us” page—or any details about the founder, current employees, or leaders. 

Plus, as mentioned in the previous section, they are currently unable to disclose details about their soon-to-be changed manufacturing process, and we have no details about where the ingredients are sourced from. 

Lastly, transparency also includes the more mundane side of things, like the ability to find shipping and return policies—which were easily found in a footer link here. 

Website Experience

 We definitely enjoyed the Lemon Perfect website experience, with attractive, colorful designs and fun features. 

As mentioned previously, the ingredient-hover functionality was appreciated, and we also liked the “What Flavor Are You?” quiz (any quiz that asks us about our ideal vacation scores high in our book).

There were no issues viewing the site on mobile, and they also had plenty of educational resources—as many as you can when your product revolves around lemons, anyway. 

Lastly, they showcased many recipes—with the appreciated option to choose between cocktails and mocktails (we’ve got our eyes on the Strawberry Passion Fruit Paloma!).

Overall, the Lemon Perfect website left little to be desired, scoring them an A grade here. 

Customer Service

When it comes to customer service, there are a few things we like to look at:

• Shipping costs and free shipping thresholds
• Return or refund policies
• Number of customer service channels 
• Responsiveness of said channels

Lemon Perfect has a great refund policy, claiming a money-back guarantee if you don’t like your order within 30 days—understandably, it must be your first order of that flavor. 

Plus, they offer free 2-3 day shipping on orders of $45 or more (which would be two cases); otherwise, shipping is a flat $10, which is a bit steep.

They only have one line of communication on their website—an embedded contact form on the site that goes to email. 

And while only one customer service channel is not an issue if said channel is responsive and helpful, this one was, unfortunately, not. 

On two separate occasions, over a week apart, we sent in questions to the customer service team—and never heard back. 

However, we later learned that the website was undergoing software transitions at the two times in question, so we gave them the benefit of the doubt and tried again. 

On our third attempt, we did get a respectable two-hour reply from their customer service team, allowing us to bump up their grade—while we don’t want to penalize too hard for a software transition, we would have loved if there was information on the site telling us that they’re could be an issue reaching them.

Thankfully, customers weren’t completely without a line of communication, as they could have reached out on social media during that time.

So, based on the original double ghosting and subsequent speedy reply, we landed on a B for customer service.

Value

All Lemon Perfect cases are priced the same on their site, at just under $25 for 12 bottles. 

At just over two bucks per bottle, this is a perfectly reasonable price for a bottle of flavored water—especially considering the half-lemon going into them. 

We attempted a comparison with other lemon waters, but no other brand is doing it quite like Lemon Perfect—all the others that we found used natural flavors or essences rather than freshly-squeezed lemon. 

Let’s take a look: 

Lemon Water	Real Lemon?	Price
Lemon Perfect	Yes	$24.96 for 12, 12oz bottles($0.17/oz)
JUST Water Infused Lemon	No	$44.99 for 24, 16.9oz bottles($0.11/oz)
Hint Lemon Water	No	$22.99 for 12, 16oz bottles($0.12/oz)
Lemon Boxed Water	No	$29.99 for 12, 16.9oz cartons($0.15/oz)

As you can see, Lemon Perfect is the priciest of the bunch—but not by much—and is the only one using real, organic lemons. 

With these factors in mind, we awarded them with an impressive A for value. 

Brand Value

Lastly, brand value is a combination of several factors, including philanthropic or environmental efforts, innovation, impact on public nutrition, and industry disruption. 

As we saw in the value section, no other lemon water brand is doing the same thing as Lemon Perfect, which definitely checks the boxes of innovation and industry disruption. 

Most flavored waters or sports-type drinks—as Lemon Perfect could fit into both categories—are loaded with sugar or artificial sweeteners, but they are proving that a healthy, organic, sugar-free, hydrating beverage can be done. 

Lemon Perfect also does great on the sustainability front, as they are both Certified Plastic Neutral and Certified Carbon Neutral. 

You can find more information about these certifications on this page, but being plastic-neutral means that, for every bottle sold, Lemon Perfect funds the removal of the one-bottle equivalent of plastic waste from the environment, reducing their plastic footprint to net zero.

They’ve also committed to helping remove a minimum of 3.5 million pounds of plastic waste by the end of 2023.

Partnering with rePurpose Global, Lemon Perfect will help to directly remove and recover plastic waste from the districts of Udupi, Hyderabad, and Aurangabad in India. 

And as Yanni states on their site, “Being a leader in sustainability is core to Lemon Perfect’s mission. Whether through our net-zero plastic footprint arising from our exciting partnership with rePurpose Global, a carbon-neutral product, or our pledge that all of our bottles will be made from 100% recycled plastic by 2026, we are committed to producing a bottled water that is better for the planet.”

Lastly, Lemon Perfect drinks can be considered beneficial to public nutrition, as they are a zero-sugar, antioxidant-rich, hydrating alternative to sports drinks. 

Our Experience With Lemon Perfect

We were able to sample a couple of flavors of Lemon Perfect—both at Expo West and at home.

All of the Lemon Perfect beverages come in tall thin plastic bottles with lemon yellow caps and bright colors for each flavor. 

Two of the flavors we tried were Dragon Fruit Mango and Original Lemon, which are both refreshing, tasty, and have distinct flavor profiles. 

As you can see, the Lemon Perfect drinks look a lot like lemonade, with a very pale yellow hue (the dragon fruit, mango, and other fruits sadly don’t change the color as they don’t come from real fruit).

The Dragon Fruit Mango was a personal favorite, with a subtly sweet taste from the dragon fruit and mango flavors.

Unlike many drinks sweetened with erythritol and stevia, the Lemon Perfect beverages are not sugar-forward—rather, the tartness of the lemon comes through first, which is much appreciated. 

You also can’t go wrong with the Original Lemon—a classic take on a tart-and-sweet lemonade (without the dozens of grams of sugar). 

Overall, Lemon Perfect drinks are enjoyable and refreshing, and we’d recommend them to anyone wanting a tart, slightly sweet, refreshing beverage on a hot summer day. 

Lemon Perfect FAQs

Final Thoughts 

Overall, Lemon Perfect receives a B rating, with high points awarded for their great ingredients and formulation, stellar website experience, and great value. 

However, we’d definitely recommend some room for improvement in their customer service responses, as well as some additional transparency with sourcing, manufacturing, and brand information. 

We’d recommend Lemon Perfect to anyone wanting a sugar-free alternative to a sports drink or flavored water—but don’t hold your breath if you’re expecting a response from them.