Refining the Refillable. A Story Still Being Written

October 28, 2025

The Spark

When I started Bottiful Home, refillable shower bottles basically weren’t a thing in the readily buyable market.

What does that even mean?

Well, it means I could find bottles. I could find bottles with pumps. I could find pretty bottles. And, of course, I already had bottles my shampoo, conditioner and body wash came in.

But I couldn’t find bottles that were pretty, had high-viscosity pumps, had labels for shampoo, conditioner and body wash and were safe for use in showers, all combined together as a set of bottles.

With curiosity and creativity as my guides, I set out to create a set of shower bottles that met all my needs.

After a lot of trial and error and research to see if anyone else would be interested in a product like this, I took the resulting solution to my messy looking shower and began sourcing the right bottles, labels and even packaging and shipping products.

The First Pour: Hand-Assembled Beginnings

To get this business off the ground, I needed to find bottles.

After much research and several sample purchases, I settled on a US supplier that sold the exact shape and color bottles I wanted in quantities I felt like I could manage without knowing if anything would sell yet.

I started the business with approximately $1,000, all in, including inventory, supplies, and equipment.

My bottles were off the shelf, the pumps were designed for high-viscosity liquids and the labels were designed by me and ordered from a separate US supplier who makes excellent quality waterproof labels.

The set I created initially was a set of four bottles, two hand soap bottles, one shampoo bottle and one conditioner bottle and a twist-on funnel for easy refills.

Bottiful Home original set of 4 refillable shower bottles with funnel

It was a waterproof, attractive, high quality product with rustic vibes.

Here's a pic of that original set I created.

Customers loved the pumps.

They enjoyed the rustic vibes, and they discovered that shampoo and conditioner don’t have to ruin the beauty of their showers anymore.

They could love the look of their showers through the glass door showers again.

The Second Chapter: The Black & White Transition

Fueled by initial success and recognizing not everyone has rustic vibes, I took that same bottle and designed a black label with white lettering to appeal to a more streamlined, refined shower decorating crowd.

I also recognized that not everyone would want two hand soap bottles to accompany their shampoo and conditioner bottles.

So this new black and white labeled set of bottles was just one shampoo bottle and one conditioner bottle.

bottiful home second refillable shower bottle version black & white label

This also made my bottle sets more giftable.

To make these bottle sets, I was working in my basement, placing labels on bottles with as much precision as I could without professional labeling machines.

Bottiful Home's humble beginnings: basement production

If you’ve never tried to perfectly align labels across several bottles and match them up exactly, just know it’s trickier than it seems.

The success I experienced at this stage was short of amazing, but enough to prove I was onto something.

I could see I was developing a real brand that offered a real solution that people wanted to a real problem that people had.

The White Option: Expanding Aesthetic Choices

Once I saw this product was a real hit, I added to my product line some white bottles and placed the same black and white labels from the amber bottles on them.

Those labels seemed to appeal to the largest crowd so far.

There were simple.

They were easy to read.

And they were completely waterproof.

This addition to the lineup was a big success at first.

Customers loved how the white bottles with the black and white labels looked when they took them out of the box.

Bottiful Home original set of white refillable shower bottles w black & white labels

What they didn’t love was that you could kind of see the colors of liquids through them.

So if you used blue shampoo, you might get a slight tint of blue color through the plastic because while it was opaque white, it wasn’t very thick plastic.

I discontinued the white bottles within a year of adding them to the lineup.

While I wanted to grow my catalog, I didn’t want to have one product people loved and one product people felt really meh about.

Plus, I was keeping busy enough in my basement keeping up with the demand of the amber bottles.

The Big Leap: Designing from Scratch

Having reached my production capacity, I had some choices to make.

I could either hire people to work in my basement with me, or I could produce the products overseas and import them.

One big consideration that resulted in my decision to move production overseas was that even if I hired people to help me in the basement, I wouldn’t have access to bottles that I designed myself and couldn't design my own colors or plastic thickness.

Basically, I would be stuck with the shapes, designs and thicknesses of the four or five US manufacturers that made plastic bottles.

And while the USA-made bottles weren’t ugly necessarily, those bottles were extremely limiting.

For one thing, they weren’t made for an industry of good looking shower bottles that would be used over a number of years instead of months.

They were designed for the beauty industry.

They were designed to be filled by machines, capped and packaged by machines and perform only one function: deliver the exact product in the exact amount as prescribed by the companies who made beauty products.

Maybe you don’t understand how limiting that is, but I was beginning to understand that my customers, the ones who would buy a bottles because of its beauty, needed the bottle to be the star of the show, not just packaging that delivered shampoo into their hands.

And I wouldn’t be able to design my own bottle in the USA unless I wanted to pay for a minimum of 200,000 bottles at once, which was the lowest minimum I could find in the US in 2019.

I’m sure the minimums are higher now.

I hadn't grown enough as a business to be able to invest that kind of money and warehouse space into a product I didn't even know people would like yet.

(I made an entire video explaining why so many products are made in China these days. It's not a riveting video of entertaining moments, but it does explain why it's so hard for small businesses to break into the market. Go here to watch it on YouTube if you're interested.)

So, with the decision made to move production overseas, I was able to not only design my own bottles, but I was able to produce them in colors I knew my audience would likely love.

Enter the frosted clear bottles and the gray bottles as my newest addition to the amber bottle collection.

Bottiful Home refillable shower bottles in gray, frosted clear and amber

And this new production process put me in the perfect position to start screen printing my bottles instead of labeling them.

(I’m shortening this story to skip over the part where I tried to get them labeled overseas and it resulted in one of my “life lessons” and big failures.)

With the screen printing added to the bottles and the new color options, I was well on my way to having a complete product lineup.

I was the only one producing screen printed bottles at the time, and I thought it would make them more luxurious and professional than bottles with labels adhered to them.

More luxurious usually means happier customers.

Not in this case.

Many of my customers didn’t even seem to notice that the bottles were screen printed so they didn’t ascribe any value to that aspect of the product.

Since everyone just thought it was a clear label with printing on it, it wasn’t an effective way to increase the overall value to the customer.

And over time, many competitors have noticed that my product was a great idea and have built entire businesses around it.

Now, you can go on Amazon and find hundreds of bottle options for beautifying your shampoo and conditioner, each with its own benefits and drawbacks.

And, of course, the Chinese manufacturers have also picked up on the trend, so you can get a set of shampoo and conditioner bottles for dirt cheap on Amazon if you’re just looking for a commodity product.

The Clearance Sale: Closing a Chapter

To prevent becoming a commodity product brand, I’ve had to make some changes.

I’ve tried different pricing strategies.

I’ve tried different free shipping options.

I’ve tried advertising on Facebook, Google and Instagram.

I’ve added new and better bottles to my lineup that are well loved by customers.

But it was time to close a chapter.

There were things I left untried, to be sure.

But I wasn’t willing to do those because I truly feel like the screen printed shampoo, conditioner, wash bottles had reached their marketable end, and I would rather end a chapter and start a new one than try to drag along a less well-loved product with my most highly rated ones.

It costs a lot of money to store thousands of bottles until they sell.

With that said, I’ve placed all my screen printed bottles on permanent clearance until they sell out.

This includes all Shampoo, Conditioner, Wash sets, all Shampoo, Conditioner sets, all Hands and Dishes sets.

Some will sell out sooner and some later because the quantities I have vary from just a few dozen to several thousand.

But once they’re gone, they won’t be coming back.

While I feel very attached to my designs, creativity and ingenuity in bringing these screen printed bottles to life, I feel no attachment at all to the physical products themselves, except for the peace I send to you with them when you order them.

I hope every bottle brings you joy when you see your shower looking like a sparkling gem instead of an afterthought.

But I’m not sad to see the bottles go.

They were never meant to be mine forever, and it’s time to let them go to good homes, even if it means I lose money on them.

So where does that leave us?

What’s Next: The Story Continues

You may be wondering if this means I plan to close down Bottiful Home.

Aren’t the screen printed bottles my signature design?

Yes, they are.

And, no, Bottiful Home won’t be closing it doors.

Don’t forget I have wide mouth bottles, foaming bottles, unprinted 16 oz bottles and travel bottles still in my lineup.

I discovered along the way that my customers prefer a bottles with thicker plastic like my wide mouth bottles and my foaming bottles.

And they want to be able to design their own labels or buy something that appeals directly to them instead of a label that is more generic and designed to appeal to a larger audience.

I’m taking my discoveries into the future of product development.

I can’t tell you what’s coming yet.

I don’t even know how long it will be until I can.

But rest assured whatever it is will probably knock your socks off.

And between now and then, you can enjoy the benefits of clearance pricing on a beloved oldie but goodie and know I’m still out here innovating, creating and designing for a better, more Bottiful future.

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