Baster? It is just supposed to be flow out of the nozzle of what looks like a genie pot. For anyone wanting to try it, you lean forward.over a sink, turn your head sideways a bit so one nostril is higher than the other and put the nozzle into the higher nostril. This part is inportant: keep your mouth open and breathe through your mouth. This will prevent the water from going down your throat, and will flow the only way available which is out the other nostril. If you are quite congested, the water will get "stuck" for a bit until it breaks through and you get the first drips, that progress into a flow, which feels very relieving. It is very important to use distilled water. Different tap water has different additives which can burn/irritate your sinuses. Make sure to have the temperature of the water Luke warm. Too hot or too cold can be very painful through the nose. A real neti pot comes with a saline solution that you add to the water. This helps to break up mucous and it kills bacteria, so the slower the flow, the more contact it has and the salt has more time to do its work. Sometimes you might need to go through a couple of pots worth of water and saline in order to break up the snot and get it out. It is worth it. If you're really sick, do a few pots of water several times a day to keep the mucous out of your sinuses and to get as many doses of the salt in there as possible. If you've ever taken a vacation to someplace warm and on the ocean, and spent all of your days there swimming in the ocean, you will naturally get some salt water in your nose which has the same effect. Using a neti pot when you don't live on a coast is pretty important.