Innovation Isn't Always Obvious

We launched the dispenser bottle, refill pack system way back in 2017. 

The hero of the system was our Aluminium bottle. Our loud and proud solution to help you ditch single use plastic. It was indisputably a great solution for our sustainability goals. 

But was it the best? ‘Cos that’s what we were after, and we wanted to be able to claim that with absolute confidence. 

Four iterations and two years later, we think we’re finally there. We’ve landed the very best solution in sustainable packaging. Here’s how our journey went. 

Iteration one, 2017. The Aluminium Bottle. 

Aluminium was our first choice of material for a plastic free dispenser bottle that would sit damn pretty on your shelf.  Aluminium is infinitely recyclable (and a very valuable recycled material), long-lasting and easily refillable, it hit the mark in many ways.

But it had a couple of issues:

• Damage to the lining could cause the bottle to corrode.
• You couldn’t actually see how full your bottle was. 
• Change in temperature would cause the bottle to expand and contract, which caused leakage. 

We spent two years trying to mitigate these issues before we decided that Aluminium was unfortunately, not our silver bullet. 

Iteration two, 2019. Transition to glass. 

We ruled out many other materials before settling on glass. 

Recycled plastic, not an option because you really do need to mix recycled plastic with new plastic to give it the durability we needed.
Stainless steel didn't solve the top up or temperature issues already mentioned.

We found a solution in glass with silicone bumpers. Glass seemed to have it all - a naturally made material that wouldn’t degrade or react to temperature. See-through for refilling. 

We designed a bottle that looked very sleek. 

Unfortunately, we designed a little bit of a fault into them too, giving them shoulders for the silicone bumper not only reduced the effectiveness of the bumpers, but created a weaker overall bottle. 

Iteration three, 2021: One flat bottle. Shorter, rounder and our most robust version ever. 

For our next run (and now that we were glass experts) we made three little adjustments to try and mitigate the problem that people were having with dropped bottles breaking. 

1. We removed the shoulders so it was once again one straight bottle. A little change that made it even more robust and break proof.
   
   
2. We made it shorter and wider to improve stability when putting it down onto the bench.
   
   
3. We rounded the corners to make the bottle a little more shock-proof. 

While we haven’t changed the breakability of glass, we’ve certainly made it hard to be worried. We’ve seen bottles that have dropped where the pump has broken and the bottle has remained intact. 

So now we have a clear bottle, that is made from natural and recyclable materials, that will last a lifetime, that is unaffected by heat, and hard to break. We’re absolutely thrilled with where we’re at. 

We will never stop innovating. Our story will continue as we continue to evolve, grow and create the best sustainable laundry practices out there. 

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