HOW TO STERILIZE GLASS DROPPER BOTTLES FOR DIY SKINCARE

There comes a time in any DIYers life where you gotta sterilize a few glass bottles. Making your own skincare is a great way to reduce single-use packaging and customize your products. Alternatively, refillable skincare is getting more accessible each day- but you'll need to ensure all containers are safely sanitized before refilling!

Our simple 5-step guide to sanitizing your glass dropper bottle will have you refilling with more confidence and less contamination!

Our guide for how to clean the glass droppers (including the pesky pipettes!) can be found at the bottom of this blog post.

STEP 1: CLEAN & SOAK

Ensure your bottle is empty. Products containing oils (like oil-based serums) can't go down the drain and should be put into your trash.

Once the bottle is empty, give it a quick rinse to flush out any residual product. To help release any labels and ensure the container is clean, soak overnight in soapy water.

STEP 2: RINSE, REPEAT

Remove your labels. Depending on how long you soaked your bottles, this may take some elbow grease! Spritz with 70% Isopropyl Alcohol to remove any stickiness.

Once de-labelled, rinse twice with warm water to get the remaining soap out of the bottles.

STEP 3: BOIL FOR TEN MINUTES

Being careful not to burn yourself (glass containers will get very hot) use tongs to place your glass bottles in boiling water. Boil for ten minutes.

After ten minutes, use tongs to remove your bottles. They will be extremely hot so simply set them on a surface to allow them to cool down before handling.

STEP 4: RINSE IN 70% ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL

Once your glass bottles have cooled completely, rinse in 70% isopropyl alcohol.

Submerge the glass bottles completely to sanitize.

If you’re confident you can clean the whole inside surface of the bottle, pour just enough isopropyl alcohol into each bottle to clean. Simply swish and empty!

STEP 5: AIR DRY

Lay fresh paper towel down on a clean surface. Position each bottle upside down on the paper towel to let it drip dry.

You’ll need to wait until the bottles have air dried completely before refilling.

It's important to wait for all alcohol and and any residual water to completely evaporate before you refill or reuse. The best bet is to not be in a hurry and leave them to dry overnight, or for 24 hrs.

Glass Bottle

Creating glass containers can be accomplished by one of two different processes – the Blow and Blow, or the Press and Blow process. Each process is chosen based on the kind of glass bottle being made. All glass bottles start out as raw materials. Silica (sand), soda ash, limestone, and cullet (furnace-ready, recycled glass) are combined into a specific mixture based on the desired properties of the bottle. The mixture is then melted at high temperatures in the furnace until it becomes a molten material, ready for formation. The type of glass this mixture will produce is known as soda-lime glass, the most popular glass for food and beverages.

Glass Forming Methods

Molten glass gobs are cut by a perfectly-timed blade to ensure each gob is of equal weight before it goes into the forming machine. The weight of a gob is important to the formation process for each glass container being made. The molded glass is created by gravity feeding gobs of molten glass into a forming machine, where pressure forms the neck and basic shape of the bottle. Once the neck finish and the general glass bottle shape has been achieved, the form is known as a parison. To achieve the final container shape, one of two processes are used.

Press and Blow Process

The Press and Blow process is the most commonly used method in glass bottle manufacturing. It uses an individual section (IS) machine, which is separated into varying sections to produce several containers of the same size simultaneously. The molten glass is cut with a shearing blade into a specific gob size. The gob falls into the machine by force of gravity. A metal plunger is used to push the gob down into the mold, where it starts to take shape and become a parison. The parison is then transferred into the blow mold and reheated so that the parison is soft enough to finish off the dimensions of the glass. Once the parison is reheated to blowing temperature, air is injected to blow the container into shape. Press and blow methods are typically used for manufacturing wide-mouth bottles and jars as their size allows the plunger into the parison.

Blow and Blow Process