It’s taken nearly two years since Laurel’s first sketch to our final product’s debut coming in 12 short days. As we worked with industrial designers, mold-makers and glass makers, we went through many modfied versions. But our committment at every phase was to creating a bottle that was made with recycled glass, that highlighted the natural beauty of glass and that blended high design with a functional, resuable, responsible bottle. I love this video we made showing our first bottles being made in an early phase. You’ll see the effort to heat the glass, mold the glass and refine it to finish. It’s beautiful, don’t you agree?
This year at the International Home + Housewares Show in Chicago, we’ll be one of 50 companies invited in to the special “Discover Design” section. This invitation-only area will be the section retailers have been asking for – a section dedicated to highly-styled products that will generate interest and excitement with their customers. We’ll be debuting our beautiful glass water bottles, made using ancient techniques in a modern glass-making facility. Our bottles, made up of a minimum of 75% recycled glass and food-grade silicone caps and ‘grippers’, highlight the beauty of glass. Our responsible design (created by a nationally-acclaimed glass artist), sourcing (100% sourced and made in North America) and packaging deliver a product that looks good, feels good and does good. Glass is naturally BPA-free and PVC-free, it won’t leach harmful chemicals, it leaves no residual odor or taste. The bottle is designed to fit the natural grasp of the hand and has a wide mouth with a rounded lip. Adding to that, we don’t use any plastics in our bottle or in our packaging – none, nada, zilch. By using glass instead of plastic, the use of one BottlesUp glass water bottle can keep 240 plastic bottles out of landfills every year. Wouldn’t you agree the combination of beauty, functionality, and responsibility is one you’d like to see?
If you’re heading to the IHA show in Chicago, come by Booth #3971. Come see the true beauty of glass in a better, more responsible bottle.
In our excitement to share our upcoming debut, I realized you might be asking just what is the International Home + Housewares Show? We found this video to be a good recap of just who is at the show and just what you might expect. Enjoy!
In just a few weeks, we’ll be debuting BottlesUp glass water bottles at the acclaimed International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago. From March 6-8, more than 60,000 people from around the world will come to see the latest, greatest and most interesting products available for the home and housewares. With more than 21,000 retail buyers coming to the show, we hope they’ll take the opportunity to bring BottlesUp glass water bottles to you. Our blend of design, beauty, functionality, responsibility – all in one bottle – can make a difference for your health and the environment.
If you’re going to the show in Chicago and want to connect, feel free to email us at jschmitt(at)cloudspark(dot)com. And if you’d like to share any of Chicaog’s best new dining secrets, our foodie team would be very thankful.
In some form or shape, we get the question of what makes glass sparkle a lot. The sparkle, or refractory quality, of glass has to do with two elements: the chemical nature of the glass and the design of the glass itself.
The Chemistry of “Sparkle”
Let’s start by sharing that in glass, there is this thing called the “refractive index.” Glass that seems to glitter against the light is most often due to the inclusion of lead oxide – commonly called lead – which makes it the most refractive on our index. Back in the day (say, the 17th century), the word “crystal glass” was used to describe a decorative glass that was cut to brilliance and used in fine objects like tableware, chandaliers and other decorative home elements. (Crystal is from the artists of Venice who used the Italian word “cristallo. Technically glass isn’t crystal because it doesn’t have the required crystaline structure. But no one checks the science, so we still use the phrase “crystal glass.”) On the opposite end of the index, you have clear, manufactured glass (think of the vase your Valentine’s Day flowers come in) which has been stripped of all the iron, lead, and other impurities naturally found in glass. It has a lower refractive quality, that is to say it doesn’t sparkle quite like the Waterford vase from your grandmother.
The base ingredient in glass is sand and that plays a big role in sand’s final quality and color. If we were to take sand from the beach and use it in our glass recipe, we’d end up with glass slightly tinted green or blue because of the chemical components of the sand on the beach. Here in the U.S. most of the sand used in glass production is harvested from Mississippi, Pennsylvania or West Virginia. All three states offer great quality sand with fewer impurities, which makes a great base for any glass production.
But, believe it or not, impurities actually can help raise glass’ natural tendency to sparkle. So yes, you want your to be a little bit “dirty” if you want it to sparkle.
The Design of “Sparkle”
While the Venetian glass artists were off about calling glass “crystal” they knew more than a few things about design. By blowing, etching, cutting, and designing the glass in certain ways, they enhanced glass’ natural tendency to sparkle. By adding in beautiful cut-in designs to tableware, or creating uniform glass pieces designed to catch light in a chandelier, they were using their skills to increase the light captured and refracted back to your admiring eyes. With stained glass or other glass elements in windows or doors, much is made in how the external light will hit the design during the day, as well as during the year. (Remember, our axis shifts, so light at mid-morning is different in winter than it is in summer.) This design-sense is why people who work with glass are truly artists.
At BottlesUp, we use both chemistry and design to amp up the sparkle factor in our glass water bottles. Recyled glass has more of the natural chemical compounds found in glass, like iron, that keep it from being too stripped and therefore lower on the refractory index. Our bottles aren’t manufactured either, their created by skilled artisans using ancient techniquest in a modern facility. To enhance this natural beauty, we designed a slight “hammered” effect into the glass to catch the light and help it gleam. Here’s the great part: with a BottlesUp glass water bottle you get a functional water bottle that’s good for your health and the environment, you get a sparkly, beautiful object.
