I bought some of the Life Factory Glass drink bottles from our local GoVita after seeing them there. I actually got the big one first (600mL), and after consulting a friend who had purchased the kids ones, I ordered in the little one (200mL).
We had a couple of stainless steel drink bottles that I felt made the water taste like metal by the end of the day, so this seemed like a great alternative.
I really like that you can see the amount of liquid you have in your bottle, I like that it doesn’t take on any taste, and I also liked how resilient it has been. It’s been dropped a few times and is still going strong, although the lid has got a few scratches and dents on it as it’s made out of plastic.
The way the flip lid works means you can get to your beverage quickly, but it can be a bit hard to drink out of. I’ve found drinking it, what seems, sideways seems to help as it can allow airflow in so you can have a large drink without it feeling like it’s trying to suck your face in.
The large bottle comes with a little handle you can carry your drink from, or use to grab it to pick it up easier. I’ve used it many times, but my butter fingers, I think is what has caused it to drop so many times too.
The little kids bottle I found a little hard to get used to at first. You need to make sure the lid isn’t tightly screwed on when your little one (or you) want to drink from it, to allow airflow, which in turns allows the water to come out of the little hole easier. It still needs a fair amount of “sucking” to get a good drink out of, so usually if I need a drink out of the kids, I just remove the lid completely as I like to guzzle down a lot of liquid when I have a drink. The kids bottle isn’t completely leak proof, but I have found if you have the lid screwed on tight, it’s better than some of those other (little) kids drink bottles’ spouts. This means you need to loosen the lid for a drink, and tighten it again before you pop it in a bag.
With the little kids bottle, you can also use it as a “baby bottle”, I had a teat and ring set that matched it, and have used it many times to give some milk to my littlest. It’s much better than using some of those plastic bottles!
The downsides of these bottles seem to be that the 600mL bottle doesn’t fit in to normal cup holders. This means you have to have it either rolling around on the floor in the car, or left on your passenger seat if no one is sitting there, which leads me to the next problem. I’ve also had issues where I’ve either not closed the flip lid completely or, it’s been knocked slightly and has leaked without my knowledge, which can happen quite quickly! I’ve ended up arriving at my destination to discover my passenger seat, handbag, and all the other stuff I sometimes keep on my passenger seat saturated as my newly filled bottle has leaked it’s entire contents. The flip lid can seem to be knocked open while rifling through your bag too, so I try to keep it upright to avoid issues. The other issue I have is, being either pregnant or breastfeeding for he past few years, means I can drink some serious amounts of water during the day, and while running around with the kids, means that water (especially filtered water!) isn’t always around to be able to refill your bottle. 600mL was the biggest bottle I could get, and to get my daily water intake I’d have to fill it 5 times, at least.
Something to consider with the kids one is that some young kids like to throw their drink bottle around, and with a glass one, this can present some safety issues. I haven’t had a problem with ours breaking, but I have had moments where I thought the throw from one of my kids would end in disaster.
Another downside is that they are quite expensive, and have gone up in price since I purchased them, so much so that my local GoVita decided not to stock them any more (I found out when I went back to get another kids one). So now, my “reduce reuse recycle” side of me now also uses old glass alcohol bottles to store water in. This glass doesn’t seem to be as robust, or maybe it’s because it doesn’t have a sleeve, but I’m definitely more careful and aware of these glad bottles than I am of my Life Factory bottle, and would not give these to my kids. I usually just refill their bottles (or mine) with my recycled (upcycled?) glass bottles.
Ballina Mama 