The Faucetface bottles are cute, but $15? I would love to find plain old milk bottle-type bottles with reusable lids. Do these exist at a reasonable price?

You've left out the best one! I have a Lifefactory glass water bottle (two, actually, had to have both sizes) and they are amazing things. The opening is wide enough to get a bottle brush in there to clean it, and the gasket in the lid keeps it from spilling. The silicone sleeve is the most important part - I've dropped the thing and it hasn't broken. Sure, they're a little pricier than some water bottles, but IMO more than worth it.

http://www.lifefactory.com/adults/22-oz-classic.html

Love the Giaras but a clear wine bottle works just as well. $2 from Trader Joe's, and it comes with wine.

I have the Takeya and it's great. It fell out of my backpack once onto a hard floor and didn't break. You can spin the cap on and off, so there's fast access to your water. The durable plastic "loop" helps with toting it around on your finger. It's also dishwasher safe. All around good bottle.

bkr also makes a great glass bottle with a silicone sleeve. A little pricier but really cool shape and so many colors to choose from. www.mybkr.com

which (if any) of these has a mouth piece designed to drink directly from? that's the Big Deal to me - and why I still purchase plastic bottles full of water. sure I recycle them, but I'd much prefer to have a bottle I know is BPA free to drink from directly. as a creature of habit, I have definitely found this aspect key. if I can carry it around and drink directly from it - awesome, I will. but having to find and pour into a glass (which inevitably is inconvenient to hold and carry with me to meetings, the car, etc) well - that's the deal breaker.

so - which of these is best for weirdo form factor picky people..???

Yes! Good for you, this is a great solution. I might point out that since they're so pricey and they do require production, I often use old juice bottles that I rinse out. For travel though, these sleek designs are the best. They rarely break. I have about 4 glass bottles and in 3 years only one broke when it fell (it was from a great height though).

How do you clean the ones with narrow necks?

@JenPDX There are thin brushed you can buy to lean those with the thin necks, but it can be a real pain. You can also do the vinegar and hot water trick if they get calcified, but you'll have to do a few rinsings to get that flavor out of the bottle before using for drinking water again.

Be careful drinking from glass bottles while in a moving vehicle. Easy way to chip a tooth.

shandygirl if you live near a whole foods or other organic market they sell milk in returnable bottles, you'd lose the $3 deposit or whatever but they're nice.

I'd never buy these bottles as I know how pain it is to wash them.

I have this one: http://www.bamboobottleco.com/about-our-unbreakable-water-bottle/
with the classic top- just screw off and drink directly from the bottle's wide mouth. I love it, and the protection of the bamboo around it. Also, the glass and plastic components pop in my dishwasher.
This doubles as my travel mug, too!

Most of the ones with a normal (not thin) neck can be thrown in the bottom rack of the dishwasher.

I agree with ScuttledCuttle. I have 2 Lifefactory water bottles and I love them. The water doesn't have a strange taste, the top seals completely, and there's a silicone covering to keep it from breaking. They travel great. I have one with me nearly all the time.

My neighbor drinks Kombucha (some concoction from Whole Foods). She gave me the bottles, and they are perfect for 'single serving'-sized water bottles. We've used 10 of them for about 2 years and we aren't very careful people, so the bottles must be pretty hardy. (We use stainless for hiking, though.)

I like the other suggestions to look around the beverage sections of TJs or Whole Foods to find a great variety of re-usable glass bottles.

Thrifty tip: I use glass baby bottles wtih the solid lids. There're a dime a dozen at the thrift store, both bottle & lid can be tossed in the dw and there's no issue with bottle brushes not fitting if you hand wash.

I got a swingtop bottle from Cost Plus for $5. (I actually got two, but cracked one. Glass, duh.) I don’t drink directly from it, though, so I don’t wash it after every use.

It’s a little heavy in my lunch bag, but after drinking (part of) a bottle of water that tasted like scotch tape once, it kind of turned me off.

Yikes, water is heavy enough without the added weight of glass. I have two stainless steel Kleen Kanteen bottles and I love them. They never leak, they have a wide enough mouth to get clean in the dishwasher, and one of them survived a fall down an entire concrete staircase with only a minor scrape to the metal. Can't beat that.

My sister doesn't like her kids drinking out of plastic bottles, but fears glass bottles would have a short lifespan :kid+concrete+glass= :-( . The Glasstic seems the way to go, but she will balk at the price (the chances of the item getting left behind/lost goes up with the price of said item when kids are involved). For me, I like my stainless container; easy to drink from, easy to clean and even rolls off the top of the car to the ground with only a few dents!

Where's life factory? Their bottles are awesome. My kids 8&6 have been using them all year at school.

Me for stainless. I get no aftertaste with the Kleen Kanteen. Bonus--when I left it in the car, full, on a -0F night, only the bottom bulged--so now I use that one where it won't have to sit flat on a table. If I'd done that with a glass bottle I'd probably still be picking glass shards out of the car. You have to allow for stupid--or even absent-minded.

naglene plastic bottles are supposed to be BPA free. i think that's the whole point / attraction to them. i have one but i find it a pain to get completely clean. i can't get my hand or a sponge to the bottom of the bottle and i can SEE it's still dirty (no dishwasher either).

for a long time i've just been using glass mason jars. they're cheap and simple and very easy to clean. as for ease of drinking while in a car... i just wait until i'm not in the car to take a sip. if you have an hour commute each way, that might be asking a lot, but anything less... just wait til you're out of the car.

You can also buy bottles of French limonade or other fizzy drinks that come in glass bottles with the porcelain swing top. For less than $5 you can enjoy the bevvie & have the bottle for reuse.

There's a brand of bottled water that comes in glass bottles. I forget what it's called right now but it's like $3 for the bottle (and the water) which is a much better deal than buying a glass bottle!

These are all really cute, but I imagine that they're far too heavy to carry around in a purse all day. :(

This post is annoying because the pics are not captioned and the text paragraphs are not numbered--- you've got to do a lot of counting and scrolling up and down to match pics with text.

BPA-free is a scam. That is only one type among many phalates in plastic. BPA free means you are still getting contaminated.

Thank you! When I use plastic, I can honestly taste the soap that was used to clean them and pretty much every drink that the cup was used for. (Drives my parents nuts when I won't use their traveling cups because of the coffee aftertaste.) Will consider using glass in the future :)

Buy a bottle of juice. Drink it. Rinse the bottle. Put water in it.

So I love my Giara style bottles & typically just drink straight out of them...work & home. I've been on the hunt though for a glass travel cup that I could drink my morning smoothie out of...anyone have any ideas?

I highly suggest the Brita Fill & Go water bottle. It's awesome for being on the go and safe to drink from.

It's a clear bottle with a white top, in case your search brings up the metal versions.
:) It just has filters which you change once every week or two weeks but the water tastes clean and I absolutely love mine!

You can purchase Nalgene bottles which are BPA free from www.llbean.com in plenty different sizes, colors, and prices.

we use ones that look like the first ones, but they are from ikea for $3 or $4!

You can also buy stainless steel water bottles. Or buy a plastic BPA free one. There are a ton of options out there.

I have a stainless, wide mouth 1 ltr bottle. When that is too much, I use the single serving glass bottlesfrom juices or cold coffees that I've washed, saved, and used many times over, with no breakage, in years. My hubs has on of the swing cap bottles from the French lemonade, but he doesn't use it though, because it's such a pain to clean. I'm not seeing the benefit of buying empty bottles.

some of these bottles are absolutely beautiful, but, truly, there's no reason not to reuse screw-top wine or juice bottles of various sizes. I've been doing this for nearly a decade -- without a dishwasher or special brush -- just by sanitizing with a bit of baking soda in the bottom, adding boiling water, covering and then carefully shaking for a bit before rinsing thoroughly with more boiling water. the hardest part is getting them to stand upside down while drying if they're not to be used right away. in the summer, when I have more bottles and they're cycled in and out of refrigeration more frequently, I'll do the above once a week; during the winter, maybe once every couple of weeks. and, I'll stagger which bottles are sanitized at any given time, so there are always a couple in use. it all sounds far more labor intensive than it actually is!

Does anyone have any recommendations for a plastic-free (ideally glass/metal) water pitcher with lid? We are currently using Binchotan charcoal sticks in a 1 liter widemouth glass bottle, but since the top is open, the water sometimes absorbs some of the fridge odors.

We're considering this one since it has a built-in place for the Binchotan charcoal filter, but it's quite pricey: http://www.dwr.com/product/water-pitcher.do?sortby=ourPicks

Any other options?