Being the aging Millennial that I am, I search out shortcuts that guarantee time for other things. It works; I won’t waste time re-figuring out what I need; therefore, I like to stick to what works and experiment with other things, like electronics. So I got pretty tired of not finding the travel sizes for my hygiene products at stores. At first I just refilled the random travel bottles I had collected from hotels with my product, then I got generic bottles, and now, I finally settled on these refillable silicone bottles. First by GoToob, and then hacking the iNiebo, a Chinese knock off brand, for the ultimate travel/gym experience.
I ran into this hack revelation when my refillable lotion bottle, after numerous years of use, never made it back home from a trip. I stumbled on these silicone bottles while trying to find my lotion in travel size. After going through the merits of the hard plastic bottles and various other ones, I settled on a pyramid shaped silicone bottle, which I wasn’t all together happy with, but felt it would do the job.
Low and behold, it was pretty spectacular while I was in New York City. All the things I thought it would fail me for, proved wrong. It squeezed down to accommodate my packing. It didn’t burst open and explode in my toiletries bag. It allowed me to use the very last drop of it without having to open the cap and smack the crap out of it.
All this got me thinking why not get more of these silicone bottles to replace the other regularly used hygiene products I take for camping!?! So on my Central America travels I bought a set of HumanGear GoToob’s. They sell 3 silicon bottles, each 1.25 ounces, in three transparent silicone tinted colors- frosted Clear, Green, and Blue. They had the similar no drip valve to the tricone, but had the added bonus of a really cool content identification system of labels, and you could even write in your own label if it didn’t have one. The one problem I had was fumbling around with them to and from the shower stalls, in a dormitory like setting I was staying at in Honduras. But they worked, so I didn’t think much of it
Then I found myself swimming regularly and using the gym shower stalls. I thought,” why not use these silicone bottles in the gym”, since I absolutely hated the high-school-hormonal-AXE crap they had put in the stalls for complimetary use. While showering, I thought I could set it up so it won’t be such a hassle taking in a caddy or resigning myself to fumbling around with multiple bottles that might fall from the small shelf the gym provided in the shower stall.
Revelation! I realized maybe I could conveniently put all the shower hygiene bottles together in some sort of system. And the internet delivered as I googled random word combinations! Apparently someone else haf this ame problem and delivered a market solution in the form of the ShowerLine Caddy (selling for 20 bucks, including shipping. Its not eligible for Prime, so you have to pay for shipping regardless).
It utilizes a lanyard that allows you to hang it from a shower head or knobs. It was great….Except, their biggest problem is that they do not use refillable silicone bottles. The other problem being that the bottles are a mere 1.5 ounces, which would require almost weekly refilling if I were to use it at the gym or pool. This was, I instantly realized, something I could easily hack.
Being the conference junkie that I am, I had a few lanyards lying around I could use for this hack. I just needed to find silicone bottles that would allow me to hang off the lanyard and also the right mechanism to hang it from.
I purchased the iNeibo Silicone Travel Bottles, found an old lanyard from a conference I attended and bought some caliometers. Viola! I got my own handy dandy little hanging shower products dispenser for traveling, camping, and the gym. 3.3 ounces, had the same identity mechanism, leak proof design with 3 layers of protection to prevent drop, leaks and spills.
Whats interesting is that ShowerLine actually sells a set of 3 1.5 ounce bottles for 4.50 (shipping an added 6 bucks). If you wanted to you could buy these bottles for 16 dollars cheaper then the iNeibo Silicone ones, and use a lanyard you have sitting around at home to hack your own ShowerLine caddy, for half the price of buying the Showerline version.
All of these still meet the TSA requirements so you can take the hack to the gym or on your travels, or both? Either way, your adventure will all that more exciting as you won’t be worrying about your toiletries.
Corner Office Shaikh 