Dave Smith and Kripa Varanasi of LiquiGlide in Cambridge, Massachusetts may inadvertently change the worlds of aquatics and marine sports. Imagine a world without foggy goggles, where every goggle lens is clear.

That would be a great gift to open water swimmers, triathletes, pool swimmers, water polo players, synchronized swimmers, scuba divers, skin divers and anyone else who is frustrated with foggy goggles.

Smith and Varanasi created a non-toxic, spray-on coating called LiquiGlide that makes the insides of containers (Editor’s Note: substitute containers for goggles) so slippery that viscous liquids slide out easily. Each coating lasts several years. “LiquiGlide is the first permanently wet slippery surface, there is no other durable solution that makes viscous liquids slide easily. What the wheel was to transportation, LiquiGlide will be to liquids – it will change how liquids move.”

Their first products will be used for commercial products such as condiments, lotions and toothpastes. Everyone knows how much ketchsup, mustard, creams and toothpaste is left behind in their original containers. Billions of dollars of these products are thrown out just because consumers cannot squeeze the last remnants of these products out of their containers.

But no more with Smith and Varanasi’s inventions that are being rolled out to 22 different clients this year.

While the innovative pair will sell its coatings to industrial customers, we hope they will work with goggle manufacturers.

Just imagine a tiny bit of water sloshing around goggles coated with LiquiGlide – which can keep goggles forever clear and entirely disrupt the aquatic world…like the coating in the ketchup bottle below:



More videos of LiquiGlide here.

Photo from the 2014 aQuellé Midmar Mile…where over 15,000 participants could benefit from fog-free goggles.

Copyright © 2014 by World Open Water Swimming Association