The people want Sprayable Energy. 
 
 Why? Part of the stated appeal is simplicity. No scary chemicals. The product is a just three ingredients: caffeine, water, and a compound that helps it be absorbed by our skin (a derivative of the naturally-occurring amino acid tyrosine). Though Yu and Soni have also sort of obfuscated their premise by calling it a "secret sauce." 
 
 (Sprayable Energy) 
 
 Yu and Soni say their recommended dose—four sprays—should deliver about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee. 
 
 Their Sprayable Energy website also clearly states: "The product is odorless, colorless, and safe." The Indiego pitch says, in bold font, "Never be concerned for your health when using caffeinated products again." 
 
 Who better than the proprietor of a new transdermal stimulant product to tell us that it's safe? We don't have reason to expect it to be any less safe than other caffeine delivery methods, though it's not been tested by the FDA. This sort of product is exempt. In May the FDA announced that it planned to look into our large-scale deployment of caffeine, retroactively. It said at the time, "In response to a trend in which caffeine is being added to a growing number of products [jelly beans, waffles, gum, syrup], the agency will investigate the safety of caffeine in food products, particularly its effects on children and adolescents." 
 
 Image from the Sprayable Energy campaign. If this is relatable, consider an EKG. And start reusing your cups. 
 
 So the organization in charge of making sure that everything we consume topically and otherwise is safe for us is, decades into the mass marketing and sale of caffeinated products without regulation, planning to look into their safety. As I wrote at the time, the only time the FDA explicitly approved adding caffeine was beverages (colas) in the 1950s (not long after increased caffeine had replaced the psychoactive component of coca leaves in soda—the latter, essentially cocaine, having been implicated in a spate of rapes). The current FDA stance is that beverages should not contain more than .02 percent caffeine. 
 
 The FDA's mid-century caffeine approval almost certainly did not anticipate fortified waffles and skin sprays. Michael Taylor, a deputy commissioner at FDA, said in May, "We believe that some in the food industry are on a dubious, potentially dangerous path. If necessary, and the science indicates that it is warranted, we are prepared to go through the regulatory process to establish clear boundaries and conditions on caffeine use. We are also prepared to consider enforcement action against individual products as appropriate." 
 
 An upside to Sprayable Energy—though I wouldn't go as far as Yu and Soni do in their pitch ("Caffeine products currently suck")—is that coffee can cause stomach ulcers and yellow teeth. And energy drinks can come with a load of extra sugar. Both can add up cost-wise if you're using regularly. (These are the aforementioned issues.) For some, a cutaneous route of delivery may turn out to be a relatively healthy way to get caffeine. ||||| Caffeine is America's favorite drug, bar none. And while we've extolled the culinary and social aspects of coffee over the years, sometimes people don't have time for a leisurely cup of joe and just want a quick fix. 
 
 Today Ben Yu, 21, one of Peter Thiel's 20 Under 20 fellows, and his partner Deven Soni, have introduced a patent-pending form of caffeine that you spray directly on your skin. (This is not to be confused with Aeroshots, another novelty energy booster that is a powder you spray in your mouth.) The marketing materials claim that caffeine diffuses through your system more gradually through the skin than through drinking. Plus, at $15 for 40 doses, it's wayyy cheaper than Red Bull. 
 
 Yesterday morning, I tried it. 
 
 6:15 am: It's my morning to get up with my toddler daughter. She is super psyched to be alive as usual. I am moving a little more slowly. 
 
 9:20 am: I miss my morning coffee. Cold brew from Brooklyn roasters Oslo with milk and two packets of raw sugar. Instead I take the four-inch-long atomizer and deliver 4 sprays to the inside of my left wrist. The foamy liquid delivers no residue on the skin. I sniff—no aroma whatsoever, let alone a rich, roasty one. Sigh. 
 
 9:27 am: My eyes pop open like Betty Boop's. 
 
 9:43 am: Whoo-hoo! The rush is a little bit disconcerting. Despite the claims, it feels like I drank my coffee very, very quickly. The tiny bottle contains 40 doses, 160 sprays. It's recommended not to take more than 20 sprays in a day, but it would be pretty easy to overdose with such a small bottle, or if you just lose count. 
 
 10:06 am: I offer my office mate at the co-working space a couple of sprays, but he says no way. 
 
 11:04 am: I'm writing my third blog post of the day, feeling no more jittery or distracted than usual. 
 
 2:15 pm: I'm hitting the post-lunchtime slump. The little caffeine canister is sitting right there on the corner of my desk, and the free cans of Coke Zero are all the way downstairs. I take a little squirt to the back of the neck. 
 
 2:17 pm: Whoo!! Heart is beating fast. 
 
 4:49 pm: Well, I got through my day. 
 
 I can't say that I'll be converting to Sprayable Energy any time soon. It turns out I like the ritual, and the flavor and aroma, of coffee. And without these atmospherics, I feel too much like a caffeine addict jonesing for a fix. It's also worth remembering that there are growing health and legal concerns arising from products with huge amounts of caffeine. 
 
 On the other hand, the $40 billion energy products market might have room for a solution that delivers this kind of jolt this quickly, with an extra spray of novelty to boot. 
 
 [Image courtesy of Sprayable Energy] ||||| First came Four Loko, the alcoholic energy drink dubbed “blackout in a can.” 
 
 Now meet Coco Loko, a “snortable” chocolate powder being marketed as a drug-free way to get a buzz. The product, created by Orlando-based company Legal Lean, includes cacao powder, as well as gingko biloba, taurine and guarana, which are commonly found in energy drinks. 
 
 Nick Anderson, the 29-year-old founder of Legal Lean, says he heard about a “chocolate-snorting trend” in Europe a few months ago. He ordered a sample and gave it a try. 
 
 “At first, I was like, ‘Is this a hoax?,'” he recalled. “And then I tried it and it was like, okay, this is the future right here.” 
 
 Each tin of Coco Loko comes with 10 servings and costs $24.99. (Courtesy of Legal Lean) 
 
 That led him to invest $10,000 into creating his own “raw cacao snuff.” It took about 10 tries over two months to come up with the mixture, which was created by an Orlando-based supplement company. 
 
 “Some versions, they just burned too much,” Anderson said. “Other times they looked gray and dull, or didn’t have enough stimulants.” 
 
 The effects of the cacao-based powder, he said, last about 30 minutes to an hour, and are “almost like an energy-drink feeling, like you’re euphoric but also motivated to get things done.” 
 
 But doctors say they’re not quite sure what to make of the brown powder, which hit U.S. shelves last month and is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. 
 
 “The question is, what are the risks of doing it?” said Dr. Andrew Lane, director of the Johns Hopkins Sinus Center. “There’s no data, and as far as I can tell, no one’s studied what happens if you inhale chocolate into your nose. When I mention it to people, nobody’s ever heard of it.” (“Maybe,” he added, “I’m not in the in-crowd.”) 
 
 Lane said he wasn’t particularly worried that “snortable” chocolate could become a gateway drug, as users become accustomed to getting a buzz by inhaling powders. 
 
 “If you’re going to do drugs, you probably don’t start with chocolate,” he said. “Certainly this is better than using an illicit drug.” 
 
 The medical community has long raised concerns about the health effects of energy drinks — which often rely on caffeine, taurine and guarana, and have been shown to raise blood pressure and cause heart palpitations. Lane says those effects could be magnified if a person inhales those stimulants. 
 
 [FDA report describing deaths sheds light on high-caffeine beverages] 
 
 “There are a few obvious concerns,” he said. “First, it’s not clear how much of each ingredient would be absorbed into the nasal mucus membranes. And, well, putting solid material into your nose — you could imagine it getting stuck in there, or the chocolate mixing with your mucus to create a paste that could block your sinuses.” 
 
 A spokesman for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it had not decided whether, or how, the agency would regulate the product. 
 
 “In reaching that decision, FDA will need to evaluate the product labeling, marketing information, and/or any other information pertaining to the product’s intended use,” spokesman Peter Cassell said in an email. 
 
 A representative for the Drug Enforcement Administration, meanwhile, said he was not aware of any agency concerns related to chocolate inhalants. 
 
 Tins of Coco Loko, which have about 10 servings, sell for $24.99. Anderson, whose brother is a rapper named Bezz Believe, says the product is popular in the hip-hop community and near college campuses in Houston and Atlanta. 
 
 Anderson says he uses the chocolate powder as an alternative to drinking when he goes out. He also reaches for a tin during long car rides, music festivals and in “those types of social situations when you feel anxious.” 
 
 He created his company, Legal Lean, two years ago with a $10,000 investment. The idea, he said, was to create a drug-free version of “lean” — a cough syrup-cocktail often made with promethazine or codeine that is known in hip-hop circles as “purple drank.” His grape-flavored version, formulated over three months, is made with herbal extracts and marketed as a “dietary supplement.” 
 
 It was a tough sell at first, Anderson says. People weren’t sure what to make of his syrup-y concoction. But his brother soon began hawking it in YouTube music videos, and they began taking it to trade shows, where it generated interest. Today, the company sells 40,000 to 50,000 bottles of Legal Lean (which retail for $12.50 a pop) each month. 
 
 (The reviews on online message boards, meanwhile, are mixed: “All I felt was drowsy,” a user named BodyAndBeats wrote on drugs-forum.com. “Put me right to sleep. Wasn’t fun at all,” said another, on IGN.com, a site for video game enthusiasts.) 
 
 As for Coco Loko, smoke shops and liquor stores have buying the product cautiously, says Alex P., sales director for Atlanta-based Exclusive Distributors, which distributes the products nationwide. (He declined to give his last name, he said, because “I don’t want people bugging me for all the wrong reasons.”) 
 
 “There’s definitely a buzz going around about this,” he said, adding that customers in recent years have been looking for items that make all-natural claims. “It’s not flying off the shelves or anything, but people are definitely curious.” 
 
 Read more: 
 
 The whopping fine Carl’s Jr. was ordered to pay for allegedly shortchanging workers 
 
 A man is suing Hershey for ‘under-filling’ his box of Whoppers 
 
 Walmart is asking employees to deliver packages on their way home from work 
 
 Walmart’s answer to Aldi and Amazon: ‘designer cantaloupe’
– If you like energy drinks but hate the drinking part, then Harvard undergrad Ben Yu and venture capitalist Deven Soni have a product for you. The two are trying to launch a product called "Sprayable Energy," that, you guessed it, gives you a jolt of caffeine straight through your skin. While skin is capable of absorbing caffeine, caffeine normally isn't soluble enough to actually be effective. Sprayable Energy adds a "secret sauce" (a derivative of the amino acid tyrosine) to correct for that, the Atlantic reports. The spray is comprised of just three ingredients: that derivative, plus caffeine and water. The product is currently up on Indiegogo, and has already more than doubled its initial $15,000 goal with 32 days to go. The plan is to sell a 40-dose bottle for $15. But there may be bumps ahead: The Atlantic notes that in May the FDA promised to look into regulating caffeine "in response to a trend in which caffeine is being added to a growing number of products" like, say, gum or even waffles. At Fast Company, Anya Kamenetz passed on coffee and tried Sprayable Energy for a day. Her conclusion? "Well, I got through my day." Click for her full report.