By Sebastian Madlangbayan, founder of Cleonse: the world's cleanest 3-ingredient organic electrolyte.
Neither is better across the board—it depends on your sweat. Cleonse gives you 500mg sodium and real cane sugar as training fuel from three ingredients, ideal for heavy sweat sessions. Cure Hydration wins on potassium and zero added sugar, making it the smarter daily sipper. Match the drink to the job.
I'm Sebastian Madlangbayan. I built Cleonse after years on the tennis court, chasing a state title in matches where I'd cramp up in the third set and wonder why the stuff I was drinking wasn't holding me together. So when I sit down to compare Cleonse against a brand like Cure Hydration, I'm not going to pretend my product wins every category. It doesn't. Cure is a genuinely good, clean company, and there are people they serve better than I do. This is the honest version.
The quick summary
Cleonse is a heavy-sweat, training-fuel electrolyte mix built around three organic ingredients and a big sodium hit. Cure Hydration is a low-calorie, coconut-water-based daily hydration mix with no added sugar and real potassium. Different tools for different jobs.
If you want the underlying reasoning behind why I formulate the way I do, I wrote a longer piece on what the cleanest electrolyte actually means. This article is narrower: just me and Cure, side by side.
The numbers, side by side
| Cleonse (per 30g stick) | Cure Hydration (per 7.3g packet, Lemonade) | |
|---|---|---|
| Sodium | 500mg | 240mg |
| Potassium | None added | 310mg |
| Sugar | 24g (organic cane sugar) | 4g total, 0g added (from coconut water and fruit) |
| Sweetener | Organic cane sugar only | Organic stevia + monk fruit |
| Ingredient count | 3 | 8 |
| Calories | 100 | 25 |
| Price | $33 / $66 / $110 (10 / 30 / 60-pack, free shipping) | Varies — see curehydration.com |
Read that table honestly and you can already see the shape of the tradeoff. Cleonse brings more sodium and real carbohydrate. Cure brings potassium, far fewer calories, and no added sugar. Neither of those is a gimmick. They're just two different bets about what your body needs and when.
What Cleonse actually is
Cleonse has exactly three ingredients: organic lemon or organic strawberry powder, organic cane sugar, and French grey sea salt. That's the whole label. No stevia, no monk fruit, no artificial sweeteners, no artificial flavors, no dyes, no preservatives, no gums, no fillers, no anti-caking agents. It's vegan and gluten-free. You can see the full Cleonse facts if you want every line spelled out.
One stick goes into 16 oz (473 ml) of water. You get 500mg sodium, 100 calories, 26g of carbohydrate, and 24g of sugar. The French grey sea salt also carries 85+ trace minerals in genuinely trace amounts — I'm not going to tell you that's a mega-dose of anything, because it isn't. It's what naturally rides along with real, unrefined sea salt.
Why the sugar is there on purpose
The biggest thing people flinch at is the cane sugar. I get it. Most of the electrolyte market spent the last decade telling you sugar is the enemy. But I put real organic cane sugar in Cleonse on purpose, because glucose helps drive sodium and water absorption, and when I'm training hard I want fuel, not just flavor. That 24g of sugar is carbohydrate my body can actually burn during a long session on court.
That's the point of Cleonse. It's a training drink. It supports hydration when you're sweating hard and working, and it hands you some usable energy at the same time.
What Cure Hydration actually is
Cure is built around coconut water powder as its base, plus citric acid, pink Himalayan salt, natural lemon flavor, sodium citrate, lemon juice powder, organic stevia extract, and monk fruit extract. Per 7.3g Lemonade packet, that's 25 calories, 240mg sodium, 310mg potassium, and 4g of total sugar with zero added sugar. The sweetness comes from stevia and monk fruit rather than cane sugar.
Cure is Non-GMO Project Verified, vegan, gluten-free, and B-Corp certified. That B-Corp certification is real work, and I respect it. This is a legitimately clean brand, and I'm not here to knock it.
Where Cure is genuinely better
Let me be direct about this, because honesty is the only reason anyone should trust a founder comparing his own product.
Cure has potassium. Cleonse doesn't. Cure gives you 310mg of potassium per packet. Cleonse adds none — and it adds no magnesium either. If getting potassium (and magnesium) from your drink mix matters to you, Cure straightforwardly beats me there. I'm not going to hand-wave it.
Cure uses coconut water as a real-food electrolyte source. That's a legitimately nice approach. Instead of only added mineral salts, a chunk of Cure's profile comes from coconut water powder, which is a real ingredient doing real work.
Cure has zero added sugar. If you're sipping electrolytes all day, watching calories, or you just don't want added sugar in a daily drink, Cure at 25 calories with no added sugar is the better fit. Drinking multiple Cleonse sticks a day is not what I designed it for.
Where Cleonse is genuinely better
And now the other side, held to the same standard.
More than double the sodium. Cleonse gives 500mg sodium versus Cure's 240mg. Sodium is the electrolyte you lose most in sweat, and when you're doing a two-hour training block or grinding through a hot match, that gap matters. For heavy-sweat sessions, I'd take the 500mg.
Real cane sugar as training fuel. The thing Cure removed is the thing I kept, on purpose. Cure's zero added sugar is an advantage for daily sipping and a disadvantage for fueling hard work. If you want carbohydrate to burn, Cleonse has it and Cure doesn't.
Zero stevia or monk fruit. Some people genuinely dislike the aftertaste of non-nutritive sweeteners, and some people simply prefer to avoid them. If that's you, Cleonse is sweetened with nothing but organic cane sugar. No stevia, no monk fruit, no aftertaste to argue with.
Just three ingredients. Cure's ingredient list is clean, but it's eight items. Cleonse is three. If a short, readable label is what you're after, it's hard to get shorter than lemon, sugar, and salt.
So who is each one actually for?
Reach for Cure if…
You want a low-calorie daily hydration habit, you care about getting potassium in your drink, you like the idea of coconut water as a real-food base, and you're fine with — or you actively prefer — stevia and monk fruit sweetness. Cure is a smart daily sipper.
Reach for Cleonse if…
You sweat hard, you train hard, and you want a strong sodium hit plus real carbohydrate to fuel the work. You want the shortest possible ingredient list, and you want zero artificial or non-nutritive sweeteners. Cleonse is a session drink for people putting in real physical work.
Honestly, plenty of people could use both. Cure on rest days and desk days, Cleonse on the hard training days. I'd have no problem with that.
My honest take as the guy who made it
I didn't build Cleonse to beat Cure at being Cure. I built it to be the drink I wished I'd had in the third set, when I needed sodium and fuel and I didn't want a laboratory's worth of ingredients to get there. Three things. Big sodium. Real sugar to burn. That's the whole idea, and I'm not going to dress it up as more than it is.
If that's the drink you've been looking for, you can grab a pack of Cleonse electrolyte drink mix straight from the product page at cleonse.com — one-time packs, free shipping, and a 30-day guarantee so trying it costs you nothing but a taste test. If Cure's the better fit for your day, buy Cure. I mean that.
Try The World's Cleanest Electrolyte™
Three ingredients. 500mg sodium. Nothing artificial. Free shipping and a 30-day guarantee.
Shop CleonseFrequently Asked Questions
Does Cleonse or Cure have more sodium?
Cleonse has more — 500mg of sodium per 30g stick versus 240mg per Cure packet. That's more than double, which is why I built Cleonse for heavy-sweat training sessions where sodium loss is highest.
Does Cleonse contain potassium or magnesium?
No. Cleonse does not add potassium or magnesium, and I'll always be upfront about that. Cure Hydration includes 310mg of potassium per packet, so if potassium from your drink mix is a priority, Cure has the edge there.
Why does Cleonse use real cane sugar instead of stevia or monk fruit?
Because glucose helps drive sodium and water absorption, and because I wanted real fuel for training, not just flavor. Cleonse uses organic cane sugar and no stevia or monk fruit, so there's no non-nutritive sweetener and no aftertaste. Cure takes the opposite approach with zero added sugar.
Which one is better for daily sipping?
Cure. At 25 calories with no added sugar, it's the smarter choice for all-day, low-calorie hydration. Cleonse is 100 calories with 24g of sugar per stick, which is what you want for fueling hard sessions, not casual sipping throughout the day.
Are both Cleonse and Cure vegan and gluten-free?
Yes. Both Cleonse and Cure Hydration are vegan and gluten-free. Cleonse keeps it to three organic ingredients; Cure is also Non-GMO Project Verified and B-Corp certified.
How much does Cleonse cost?
Cleonse is $33, $66, or $110 for one-time 10, 30, or 60-pack orders, all with free shipping and a 30-day guarantee. One stick makes 16 oz (473 ml) of drink.
Editor's note: Cure Hydration figures (calories, sodium, potassium, sugar, sweeteners, ingredients, and certifications) were verified against the official Cure Hydration product label at curehydration.com. Cleonse figures reflect our own product label.