WHERE’S MY WATER BOTTLE? Why does it take “so long” to ship me one Water Bottle?

We see and hear your concerns in the comment feeds of our social media. You’re upset! Other people have received their ____ product, but you haven’t yet. And you ordered it three weeks ago! What gives?

What gives is that we’re a handmade glass product from “sand to hand.” To explain: we handmake our glass from scratch. That means that we put all of the raw materials together in a big mixing machine, and shovel those raw materials into hot, empty furnaces when we make new glass. These furnaces are empty because we’ve emptied them - making products. We batch each of our glass colors in dedicated furnaces, each of which has a different maximum capacity in pounds of glass. When we finish working out each of these dedicated color furnaces, we have to stop, and ‘recharge’ the furnace with all of the raw materials. This process takes a three-day turnaround. There is literally no rushing this time period – the glass can’t be worked until it is finished ‘cooking.’

When we release new products that take off, or experience high demand, then it will take us longer to move through the first-in/first-out order boards for that particular product. This is because we can only make X pounds of Cobalt-colored glass in one go, for example. And when we do make X pounds of Starry Night Water Bottles, not all of them will pass muster as first quality wares! Once we’ve made as many as we can out of that furnace, then we have to clean it out and batch new glass in it. Three more days!

We’ve seen some concern that there are products in the Visitor Center that you are waiting for at home. This is strictly speaking never true. We do not make available glass for sale that is needed to fulfill current orders. The confusion may come in for those unfamiliar with our Visitor Center gift shop. Our VC stocks and sells primarily second-quality wares. So you may see a Starry Night in the Visitor Center that you are waiting for at home – but it’s a second-quality Water Bottle you’re seeing in our Visitor Center.