A couple of years ago, I bought this bottle of shampoo. I have been reusing it and refilling it ever since.
I particularly like the translucent, frosted plastic more than a crystal clear bottle or an opaque one. I think it’s a pretty effect.
In fact, I’ve bought several pieces from a range of home goods that follow a white + frosted color scheme to keep things cohesive.
And several of the ikea pepprig spray bottles which I like for their shape.
At some point during my ownership of the blue shampoo bottle, I realized that I wanted to get two more so that I could have my shampoo, conditioner, and bodywash all in matching frosted bottles. But that brand h…
A couple of years ago, I bought this bottle of shampoo. I have been reusing it and refilling it ever since.
I particularly like the translucent, frosted plastic more than a crystal clear bottle or an opaque one. I think it’s a pretty effect.
In fact, I’ve bought several pieces from a range of home goods that follow a white + frosted color scheme to keep things cohesive.
And several of the ikea pepprig spray bottles which I like for their shape.
At some point during my ownership of the blue shampoo bottle, I realized that I wanted to get two more so that I could have my shampoo, conditioner, and bodywash all in matching frosted bottles. But that brand has switched to clear bottles and I missed my chance. When I would go to the store I would check if any nice bottles might catch my attention, but I couldn’t find a good match or a new bottle worth switching to. And since this isn’t that important I just continued living with the mismatched bottles at home cuz whatever.
Recently though, I really got determined to buy some matching shower bottles. I wondered if I should join the bourgeoisie and buy actual frosted glass instead of plastic, despite the obvious questionability of keeping glass in the shower.
When searching for glass pump bottles online, it quickly became apparent that the Boston Round style of bottle is the most common for this purpose. My blue shampoo bottle holds 32 ounces, though considering that a 32 oz Boston round might not sit on the ledges of my shower as well as the oblong plastic bottle, I would be willing to accept a 16 oz instead.
My dreams and lacerations were not to be, however, since I absolutely could not find a suitable product except in large wholesale quantities. Search after search after search on multiple websites with all combinations of keywords simply could not produce for me a small set of 16 or 32 oz frosted glass Boston rounds.
Instead, all I could find were:
Frosted glass less than 16 oz, which will simply be way too small for shower use.
32 oz frosted glass in too large a quantity
Bottles in other colors, mostly clear, amber, or an opaque coating.
Don’t get me wrong, these cobalt blues are very pretty as well, and I’m nearly tempted to buy some. But I don’t actually have any use for more such glassware.
Having nearly given up on finding bottles to buy, I decided to try putting my shower products in the hand soap bottles that I already own. I have a few spares, and at 18 oz they’re a decent capacity. But, the experience was poor: the dosage of those pumps is too low, requiring two or three presses to get a normal amount of shampoo; and the straws too narrow to deal with conditioner, often sending up nothing at all. So I aborted that idea and went back to searching.
Since I’ve gone down one corner of the rabbit hole that is glassware, and noticing that I’d probably have to buy the pump heads separately from the bottles themselves, I learned that the standard threading used on Boston rounds is most commonly of the 28-400 or 28-410 variety.
There’s actually a second, contemporary storyline that intersects here, which is that the pump heads on my hand and dish soap don’t seem to be the most durable. One of them had already cracked pretty badly and started leaking (not pictured here, I threw it away — keeping the bottle itself of course — before deciding to write this article), and another has now started to crack as well.
These hand soap bottles cost me $5 each, so if the pumps crack I’d like to replace just the pumps and not the bottles. Do these also use a 28-400 thread?
I still don’t need 500 of them, but you know what I mean.
Hmm, looks like 28mm to me. Sorry, this color is difficult to photograph.
I found that someone had already made an STL file for a 28-400 pump, so I printed up one of those to check if it fits.
Yes!
What else does it fit?
What else does it fit???
Does that mean...?
It does!
It means the pepprig are now my shower bottles. At 20 oz and a conveniently small footprint, they are a good size for the shower. Using the pumps that came from the original shower products, the dosage is correct, and nicely color matched with the contents. Though not matching the white + frosted theme, I like this too.
Here they are in situ.
This made me curious what else might be 28-400 compatible, with a few... cursed results.
The lesson today is:
- appreciate standardized interfaces whenever you find them, and
- try putting random stuff together
Have fun.
- 2026-01-06 Add 28_400.md. Contact me: writing@voussoir.net
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