DIY Color Coded Glass Spray Bottles

Most of the time I’m happy to be resourceful and get by with whatever I have around to use instead of buying something new. This had definitely been the case with the spray bottles for all my homemade cleaners. I was always just grabbing whatever cheap spray bottle I already had in my stash.

And then I bought one glass spray bottle. And I really loved that glass spray bottle. I loved it a lot. And then I became tired of my all my other cheapo spray bottles. And then one day I just hit the wall.

Suddenly I wanted all my bottles to be nice glass spray bottles. I was so weary of my mish-mash assortment of bottles. When I lined them up on my shelf, not one single spray bottle was the same as another! And my mish-mash of labels was just about as bad. I wanted uniformity. I wanted simplification. I wanted pretty. I wanted change!

Oh, and can the change include color-coding please? The organized part of me loves color coding. Color coded cleaning bottles would be awesome.

So the Google searching began and guess what? Pretty much nothing turned up for an organized group of color coded glass spray bottles. And what do you do when that happens? You Make Your Own!

My Homemade Solution for Colorful Spray Bottles

Perhaps I was being a bit picky. I had my whole list of what I wanted:

• Glass bottles, no plastic
• Clear glass too, no dark colors like amber
• Just a bit of color on the clear bottle somewhere
• At least six colors
• Pretty colors too please not yucky boring ones
• No bigger than a 16 oz size
• Not cost an arm and a leg

But apparently nothing like that exists anywhere. Go figure. I guess there aren’t enough dorks like me in the world to create a market for such a product. {Come on people, color coded glass spray bottles are cool!}

So instead I came up with a homemade solution. I bought this pack of 6 clear glass spray bottles and for the color coding bought this pack of 10 silicone bottle coasters. (*affiliate links*). Buying what I needed in these slightly larger packs helped to keep the cost down a little bit too.

Operation Color Coded Glass Spray Bottles had begun!

Putting The Pieces Together

My thought was that to create a bit of color for each of my clear glass spray bottles, I would put one of the silicone rings on the bottom of each. It’s important to note here that these rings weren’t made to go on spray bottles. They were intended to go on water bottles and so the size was not an exact match.

Therefore the first slight problem I encountered is that the silicone rings would keep slipping off unless I pulled them completely up over the bottom of the bottle. This left a little ridge showing on the rings – BUT – I decided I actually liked that and felt it gave some design interest to the finished look.

The second slight problem is that it took some pulling to get the ring completely over the bottom of the bottle. I’d get one side pulled over, stretch it the other way, and then the first side would come popping off again. No kidding, I think it took me like 5 minutes to get my first ring on, pulling it back and forth, and back and forth. It was an exercise in patience and frustration leaving me wondering if my bright idea was even going to work at all.

But by the time I did the sixth bottle, I had it all figured out and gave the ring a good yank one way, and then a couple good yanks the other way, and I had it up over the bottom of the bottle in only a few seconds. My persistence paid off!

Then to keep the color coding vibe going, I created matching colored labels to go with each bottle. I printed these on my computer printer using regular paper and then just cut them out.

To put the labels on the bottles, I covered them with 2″ wide clear packing tape. I created the labels just a bit smaller than 2″ high so that I could completely cover the label with the tape, with enough tape extending around the edges to adhere it to the bottle. This prolongs the life of the paper label and protects it from water.

And once I had all the rings on my bottles, and the pretty matching labels were on there too, I sat back and decided I had indeed been successful. I was able to make my own fun little set of colorful glass spray bottles that met all the criteria I was looking for.

Operation Color Coded Glass Spray Bottles – Complete!

Would You Like To Make Your Own Color Coded Bottles Too?

I must say, I’m really quite pleased with how my DIY colorful spray bottle project turned out. It’s so nice to have everything not only simplified and coordinated, but pretty too!

If you also like to make your own cleaners, I think you’ll find this a fun project as well. Here again are the Amazon links to the glass bottles and the silicone rings that I used – AND – free pdf’s for the colorful labels too!

Clear Glass 16 oz Spray Bottles – 6 Pack
Silicone Sleeve/Coasters – 10 Pack Assorted Colors

Printable PDF – 6 Colorful Cleaning Labels with Cleaner Names
Printable PDF – 10 Blank Colorful Cleaning Labels

These labels were made for the colors I received in the package of silicone rings. I’m not sure if the same assortment of colors are always sent, but thought I would share these pdf’s just in case.

What About The Cleaning Recipes?

If you’ve gotten this far you might be thinking, “Hey this all sounds great . . . I think I’ll be making my own colorful spray bottles too! But what homemade cleaners is she actually putting into those spray bottles to match all this color coding??”

Very good question – I’m glad you asked. I’ve been making homemade cleaners for 10 years now (which is why I’d accumulated such a strange assortment of spray bottles during that time!) But also during those 10 years I’ve learned more about homemade cleaning mixtures, how they work, and what I feel are the six main categories they fall into.

And because I wanted to say a little bit more about that, I’ve written a separate post with more info on that subject that includes the six helpful DIY cleaning recipes you can put into your homemade color coded bottles.

Read Part 2 of this post here: 6 Easy Homemade Spray Cleaner Recipes