CVS Humidifier Review

CVS Humidifier Review

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CVS Warm Steam Vaporizer

In the world of humidifiers, there are several options when it comes to brand, size, style, and features. The CVS Health Warm Steam Vaporizer (from Amazon) is a throwback to the humidifiers your grandmother may have pulled out when you came home with a cold or the flu.

The bulbous, and almost opaque base was a little soft and it held the heated water that came out the top.

Warm mist humidifiers are helpful when you’re dealing with the awful symptoms of a cold or flu, but can also be used year-round for adding moisture to your home to help combat other issues associated with dry air.

Discover why so many people trust CVS’ most popular humidifier model, rather than the newfangled ultrasonic types, or even the classic evaporative type humidifiers.

This one definitely has its pros and cons, and you’ll find out how this particular model can benefit you. You’ll also learn how others felt about all the nuances of the CVS Health Warm Steam Vaporizer 2100. Then you’ll be able to decide for yourself if this is the best humidifier for you and your needs.

Pros

  • Affordable
  • Large water tank
  • Decent runtime
  • Easy to clean
  • Easy to fill
  • Includes medicine chamber
  • Finger grips on the sides
  • Quiet operation
  • Nightlight included
  • No white dust produced
  • Bacteria killed in the process
  • Adjustable vapor outlet
  • Satisfaction guaranteed

Cons

  • Can be dangerous to use
  • Reports of defective units
  • Returns may be denied

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What to Expect from the CVS Health Warm Steam Vaporizer 2100

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If the CVS Health Warm Steam Vaporizer looks familiar, then your family may have had one like it that made its home under a bathroom sink. Moms and dads often lugged this type of humidifier out only when someone in the household was sick with a stuffy nose or cough. It turns out that everyone in the house would have benefited from the extra moisture in the air during the winter or other dry times of the year.

Decent Capacity

The large water tank holds about one gallon of water, which is much more than personal humidifiers, and about the same as the ones rated for medium-sized rooms. The best part of having a humidifier or vaporizer with a one-gallon tank is that you’ll get more hours of moisture without having to refill. This CVS humidifier is supposed to give you about 10 to 14 hours of steam, but some reported a shorter run time.

If you do get the published run time, that means you can set this up in a bedroom or nursery and get a full night of humidity added to the room, so you or your family member will get some much-needed rest when they’re sick or simply suffering from symptoms from dry air.

Affordable

You may have asked yourself how much is a humidifier at CVS. You can find this humidifier online or you can go into the popular drugstore to find it, but either way, you’re likely to be pleasantly surprised by the price of this humidifier.

Compared to most humidifiers on the market right now, this one costs at least half that of the small, personal humidifiers, and about a quarter of the price of those that are similarly sized.

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Cleaning

All humidifiers need cleaning, and this one is no exception, but you may find you have to clean it less frequently compared to other humidifiers. Heat-based humidifiers can kill off a whole slew of bacteria and viruses, so you won’t have to worry much about bacteria build-up. In fact, you might not even have to be concerned about mold either. You’ll still need to clean the water tank and the heating element, and it’s suggested you use a vinegar or bleach solution (with lots of rinsing afterward) to keep it squeaky clean.

Cleaning and refilling this CVS humidifier is much easier than many of the other options available to you. Just remove the top heating element and you have the water tank in hand. The finger grips on the side are meant to make it easier for you to carry without slipping. Scrub it down to remove the sediment at the bottom and then dry it out completely before refilling and using it again.

The top-fill feature makes this much easier to fill in a sink and then reattach the top and get it going. The heating element will need a soak, as mentioned above, but that’s also easy. A weekly cleaning is best, but you can probably get away with longer stretches without cleaning the unit.

Works with Oils

Although this CVS humidifier does not have any warnings or permissions about using essential oils in the unit, it seems that it could work just fine with them.

essential oil and lavender flowers

There is a medicine chamber included on the top of the unit that’s meant to hold the menthol solution most of us are familiar with that comes in that dark blue jar. You can add a bit of that solution to help soothe dry, sore throats and coughs. Even if there is no proven benefit from using that menthol solution, it somehow seems to help. Alternatively, you could probably use eucalyptus oil or other herb oils to help relieve symptoms along with all that warm vapor.

Quiet

This humidifier is much quieter than evaporative types because there’s no fan included. Steam naturally rises, so the vapor should get to where it needs to go without any assistance. The water boiling is so quiet you should notice it at all, which means this could easily go to work at raising the humidity in a bedroom and shouldn’t disturb anyone’s sleep.

Nightlight

You might notice a glow in the middle of the night from your CVS humidifier – that’s the included nightlight. It isn’t blinding by any means, and it can be helpful if you need to find your way from bed to bathroom and back again. Something you might also notice, if you’ve ever used an ultrasonic humidifier, is that there’s no white dust.

Any leftover minerals from your water, which may be quite a bit if you have hard tap water, sink to the bottom of the water tank. You can shake most of this out, and a vinegar soak should get rid of most of those deposits.

Flexible Options

The spout where vapor pours forth is adjustable, which can be helpful if you’ve set this up on a table near your bed or a crib. You can direct it in eight different directions, which ensures that you get the humidity thicker in the area you want it. Of course, if you have this near an air return and you have a forced-air heater running, it could help distribute the humidity throughout your house.

Warranty

Warranty

This CVS humidifier comes with a guarantee, but like most guarantees, there are caveats. If you buy this at the drugstore, be sure to hold on to your receipt. You can return it unopened, opened and used, in any condition, as long as you do so within 60 days of purchasing it, and you must also have the receipt. Even if you follow all those instructions, CVS could refuse to accept your return. There’s also no guarantee you’ll get your money back – you might only get a replacement or store credit.

Caution

Speaking of caveats, as well as this humidifier seems to work for so many, it has some warnings you should heed, especially if you have children in your home. This is a vaporizer, which means it has a heating element. So, the water that’s turned into steam is very hot – the heating element is also quite hot. There’s always the possibility of burns, so you must be very careful using this around children or the elderly. Even the steam produced could be dangerous, so use it with caution.

salt

One of the best tips you’ll get regarding this CVS humidifier is this: Use salt. Add a pinch or two of table salt to the water the first time you use this humidifier, and every time after cleaning it and refilling it, and you will notice a big difference in the vapor output. The addition of salt will help the water boil faster, but it may not be necessary if you have exceptionally hard tap water.

Features & Benefits

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All humidifiers have the same end result, but they go about getting there a different way if they’re different types. The CVS Health Warm Steam Vaporizer 2100 offers plenty of features that can benefit you in similar ways as other humidifiers, with a few key differences.

Warm Mist

While vapor is vapor is vapor, the warmth of the steam from a vaporizer seems to soothe better than cool mist humidifiers. Plus, the steam can help increase the temperature in the room slightly, which helps during the winter.

Top-fill Tank

Many humidifiers require you to remove them from the unit, turn them upside down, refill them, replace them with a cap, and then turn them back over onto the model. That can be unwieldy, at best. This one, however, is a top-fill unit, so you just have to carry it from one place to the other and no handles turning over or caps are necessary.

Large Size

Although a gallon-sized tank isn’t huge, it’s big enough to be useful. And it isn’t too big to make it difficult to carry full from a sink back to the unit. You should be able to get about 10 hours runtime out of one tank, and up to 14 hours.

Directional Spout

This CVS humidifier lets you choose where the vapor should be directed, and you get to choose from eight different directions. That lets you decide where the concentration of vapor should be, and it can help alleviate symptoms more quickly.

Medicine Chamber

There’s a small opening where you can add mentholated solutions to make the vapor more soothing, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to also use essential oils in that same chamber. Most humidifiers won’t allow additives.

Nightlight

The included nightlight on this CVS humidifier is bright enough to illuminate your path at night, but it shouldn’t be so bright to disturb your sleep.

What Others Are Saying About It

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It can be helpful to see what others have said about the various features and pitfalls of a product. Carefully go through these collections of reviews from actual users of the CVS Health Warm Steam Vaporizer 2100 to be aware of what issues you may encounter, if any, with this humidifier.

Effective Humidity

The amount of humidity pumped into a room from this humidifier is largely sufficient, though many people reported needing to add salt to get the vapor really going.

Nightlight

Most people did not comment on the nightlight feature. Very few people took issue with the nightlight, even if it was preferred that it didn’t have one, as the nightlight isn’t too bright.

Hot Steam

Overall, it seems most customers liked the warm mist that came from this machine, but there is a healthy respect for how dangerous it could be if it spills on someone. Keeping it out of reach of children is a warning heeded by most.

Value

Unanimously, customers agreed that this humidifier from CVS is a great value for its efficacy and cost. Its price is much lower than most humidifiers on the market.

Noise

Very few people said this humidifier was loud at all, but there were a few. Most didn’t even comment on the noise level of this humidifier.

Tank Size

At one gallon, this CVS humidifier’s tank is a generous size, but not too big to make it difficult to carry around. There were a few comments about the finger grips making it more difficult to carry, but for the most part, customers were happy with the medium size.

Cleaning

Overall, most people who bought this CVS humidifier said it was easy to clean, thanks to the top-fill tank and wide opening, so you can definitely get a hand inside to scrub away at any hard-water deposits.

Refilling

Seeing as how this is a top-fill tank and most other humidifiers available are not, this is an easier-to-use humidifier comparatively. A gallon tank isn’t too heavy for most people to carry, but you also don’t have to worry about turning it over to reattach to the unit.

The Bottom Line

Among the humidifiers that are largely available on the market now, the CVS Health Warm Steam Vaporizer 2100 is an outlier. Many people opt for an ultrasonic humidifier which is largely a safer option, especially around children. The newer technology in humidifiers also costs a lot more upfront. This CVS humidifier may require more electricity for the heating element to boil water and create steam, but it comes with several benefits that may make it worth it to have in your home instead of the more ubiquitous types of humidifiers.

The steam created by this humidifier slightly warms the air around it, which can seem more soothing when you’re nursing a cold or the flu. You also have less to worry about when it comes to bacteria, as the heat kills off a lot of the common bacteria that can spread through other humidifiers. You may end up having to clean this humidifier less often, too.

Filling it is easier than others, as it has a top-fill function. So, you only have to carry it to and from the sink and there’s no tipping, flipping, or other awkward maneuvers to perform. This is also one of the most affordable humidifiers on the market, especially for the size. The gallon-sized tank can run for 10 to 14 hours, even though there’s no way to control the humidity output.

You can control the direction of the steam, though, so you can point it directly at your face if you need a little extra boost of moisture to help relieve symptoms.

The medicine chamber is a nice addition, as well. You can pour mentholated products inside to give you a little more soothing when you have a sore throat or a dry cough. There’s nothing in the instructions that warn against using essential oils in there, either, so you have more options than with most other humidifiers.

The CVS Health Warm Steam Vaporizer 2100 may be called a vaporizer and not a humidifier, but it serves the same purpose. It can effectively raise the humidity in a medium- to large-sized room, or even a whole house if you use it continuously. It’s easy to use, easy to fill, and easy to clean, which makes this one of the best humidifiers to use overall. The low cost also contributes to the value of this humidifier. Yes, you must be careful when using this humidifier, as it does contain hot water that can scald when it’s in use, but if that’s not a concern, then this could be one of the best humidifiers on the market.

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CVS Humidifier Review

Last update on 2024-03-21 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

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