S’Well Bottles

My brain seems to be fundamentally incapable of staying committed to the simple, but important, task of staying hydrated. I’ve tried setting myself a “drink water” timer, making drinking a game with the FitBit app and even tricking myself into drinking more water by flavoring it with everything from cucumbers to fresh blackberries. While the latter has been my most successful attempt, the bottom line is that I’m better at staying on target when I always have a bottle of water by my side. But rather than contribute to the daily waste of disposable plastic bottles, I’ve been looking for a single (cute) bottle I can use to tote around with me all day. One of my favorites right now is S’well‘s series of wood-inspired bottles. The colors are fun, the bottle keeps drinks cold for 24 hours (and hot for 12 hours) without condensation and the whole thing is BPA free and non-toxic. One big bonus for me is that the top is wide enough to fit ice cubes for extra cool temps and little bits of flavor (I like making mint and citrus ice cubes). I was curious to hear more about the design process behind this series, so I asked S’Well founder Sarah Kauss to share the back story. I loved finding out that each bottle is hand-painted and knowing that it took a while to get just the right style makes me appreciate the final product even more. Thanks so much to Sarah for sharing this process with us. xo, grace

Click through to read the biggest challenge Sarah faced during her design process…

(more…)