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The school supply list says "water bottle" and nothing else. The shelf at the store says forty different things. Plastic with a straw, steel with a handle. One with a cartoon lid that will be out of favor by October.
What you actually want to know is simpler. Which one is still in use in March, and which one comes home dry?
Stainless steel. Uncoated inside, with a cap and a seal you can replace.
Here is why, and what to check before you buy one.
What goes wrong with plastic bottles?
Mostly, they remember things.
A plastic bottle that spent the weekend in a school bag tells you about it on Monday. The smell stays after washing. So does the taste of last week's juice.
Over a year the plastic clouds up, and the inside takes on a color you did not put there.
Then there is BPA. Some plastics contain it, and the discussion about it is long. With steel, it is a discussion you get to skip.
Why is stainless steel the better choice for a kid's bottle?
Because there is nothing in it to go wrong.
Steel does not hold a smell or a taste. Water tastes like water on Friday, whatever was in the bottle on Monday.
And steel does not care how it is treated. It survives the bottom of a backpack and the dishwasher.
It will pick up scratches along the way. The scratches stay. So does the bottle.
Our bottle is uncoated 18/8 (304) stainless steel on the inside. No liner, no coating. Your child's water touches nothing but steel.
There is no plastic anywhere on it either, cap included. The cap is steel with a bamboo top. The seal is the one soft part, because a bottle has to close.
Vacuum Insulated Stainless Steel Water Bottle
A vacuum insulated stainless steel water bottle for the commute, the desk and the trail....
Get YoursIs it tested for lead?
Yes, and you can read the report yourself.
The bottle is independently tested for lead under the US CPSIA, and we retest every year. The current report is on our certificates page. Free to download, no form, no account.
The parts that seal the bottle are tested separately, under FDA 21 CFR 177.1210. Same page, same lab. That is the whole safety story, and it is short on purpose.
Will it leak in the backpack?
No. Not standing up, and not lying flat under a math book.
The cap threads are cut precisely, and the seal runs all the way around the cap. Together they hold the bottle shut on its side in a bag. Sparkling water included, if your kid is into that.
A spare seal is already in the box. You will not need it for a long while. It is there anyway.
Does it keep water cold all day?
All day, and most of the next one.
The bottle is vacuum insulated. It holds a drink cold for 25 hours and hot for 13 hours, with no preheating.
Fill it with ice water at breakfast and it is cold at pickup. Cold the next morning, too, if it never got finished.
How much to drink in a day, counted in bottles: How many water bottles should you drink a day?
Will it fit in a school bag?
Three sizes. The smallest is the one for the school bag.
The 17 oz bottle stands 8.46 in tall and 2.34 in wide, and it weighs 0.66 lb empty. That is a bottle a kid carries without noticing it.
The 25 oz and 34 oz sizes are the same bottle, taller. Keep one of those for yourself.
Which size fits which bag, for the grown-ups: Which stainless steel water bottle should I choose?
A carabiner and a cotton pouch come with it. Clipped to the outside of the pack, the bottle stops rolling around inside it.
The cap is a screw cap with a steel loop on top. Small hands can open it and close it, and there is no sharp edge anywhere on the bottle.
Can it go in the dishwasher?
Yes. Bottle, cap and seal, all of it.
For the nights it comes home with something unidentifiable in the bottom, a natural bristle brush is in the box. The opening is 1.96 in wide, so the brush actually reaches the bottom.
One habit worth keeping: pull the seal out of the cap now and then so the groove dries. That is what keeps a seal working for years.
What happens when a part wears out?
You buy the part. Not a new bottle.
The cap, the seal set, the carabiner, the pouch and the brush are each sold on their own. All of them are in our spare parts section. A cap lost in November is a small order, not a new bottle.
The bottle itself carries a 3-year limited warranty on material and workmanship.
And if it turns out not to be the right one, you have 60 days to send it back. Unused, in its original packaging, with a return label that is on us.
Should I put a name on it?
Walk past a classroom cubby in October. Twenty steel bottles, and they all look the same from the door. One of them has your kid's name on it.
The name is engraved into the steel, not printed on it. No sticker, no paint, nothing to peel. It goes through the dishwasher with the rest of the bottle.
On the bottle it sits in one fixed position. So there is nothing to decide except the text and one of two fonts.
That is our Express Engraving. Order by 1 PM PT and we engrave it the same day, in our own facility in CA.
Positions, fonts and how the whole thing works, box included: engraved water bottles and lunch boxes.
One thing to know before you type. An engraved bottle is yours for good, so it is the one item we cannot take back. Check the spelling twice. Everything else comes back within 60 days.
How do I see the name on it before I order?
In the preview. Nothing in this article settles it the way that does.
Type the name, look at it on the bottle, change the font, delete it and try the nickname instead. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing. The preview is on the engraved water bottle page.
And if you would rather skip the engraving, take the plain vacuum insulated water bottle. Same bottle, same steel, same 60 days. All sizes and styles are in our stainless steel water bottles collection.
The matching question for lunch: What's the best lunch box for kids?
