I Designed my Own Keep Cup

(This is not a paid review, I'm just very easily excited. All links are meant to open in new tabs if you're on a computer. If any don't do that, let me know and I'll get cross with them).

When I first wanted a reusable take-away coffee cup, I wrote all about it on this blog. I wrote again when I found my perfect cup. You can read about that cup by following this link. I told that link to open in a new window, so it had better... Anyway, when I got that cup, I loved it. You know what? I still love that cup. and its twin. I'll tell you a little bit about those two cups, and then get on with what you came here for.

The first cup, the one featured in the linked blog post, was free with any Nescafe purchase from Coles. That's one thing that made it the perfect cup for me at the time: I had very little money indeed as I had no job. My second reusable cup, that one's twin, I got soon after I moved to Brisbane, when I found it beside the footpath when I was walking to the bus one day... or home from the bus, I forget which. Anyway, I found it, and it didn't look like it had ever been used, so I adopted it. It's not weird.

Anyway, those cups are about six years old, now. They're still perfectly usable, because I generally only use one of them once a week or so. If I used them every day, they would be getting very old and would definitely need replacing.

Recently, my mum was in hospital in Brisbane and, since I was the only person that lived close enough, I was going to visit her every day. That's when I decided I needed a third reusable take-away cup, and when I decided that should be a Keep Cup.

Why did I decide I needed a third cup? Well, one day, both of my reusable cups were dirty and so I needed to get a paper take-away cup. Since it only happens rarely, this is fine. It is an unfortunate truth that sitting at the hospital requires coffee. The problem occurred when I heard "cappuccino" and just grabbed it and left. I had grabbed the wrong cappuccino, a simple mistake, since all the paper cups look the same. It would usually have been insignificant, but this cappuccino had vanilla syrup in it. I don't mind flavoured coffee, but flavours are for lattes, not cappuccinos, so obviously my day at the hospital was ruined!

And why did I decide my new cup had to be a Keep Cup? Well, that is an excellent question, which calls for photos!

The lids of my two old cups are like this:

It has two little holes in it: one for drinking through (the most important one), and one tiny little chimney one, which, to be fair, you probably don't actually need since the steam can probably get out the other one. These holes are both open all the time, which is great when you're drinking out of it, as it allows this to happen. When you're finished your drink and want to stick the cup back in your bag, however, it is not good. You either need to rinse your cup in a public bathroom, or wipe the inside of the cup and lid with a paper napkin, which creates waste.

In contrast, this is a Keep Cup lid:

WHERE IS THE DRINKING HOLE!?

THERE IT IS!

It safely hides away under a little plug, so that you can put it in your bag and carry it home to wash, even if you don't have a spare plastic bag, or a stockpile of napkins.

I ordered my Keep Cup from the company's own website. One reason I did this was so I could come up with my own colour combination. Obviously, I chose a different colour for every piece of my cup.

The package arrived today (Monday the 30th of April). I was impressed that there was no excess packaging, the box was just the right size for my cup.

I opened it up, and stared at my beautiful little cup for a while.

Honestly, I already want to order another one, just so I can put four new colours together...

All the standard colour combinations on the Keep Cup website have cool names, like "Kinetic" or "Zephyr", so I have named my colour combination "Gladys", which I feel is as good a name for a colour combination as any.

If you want to design a Keep Cup in Gladys, choose "Punk Pink" for the cup, "Acid Plum" for the lid, "Sunflower" for the plug, and "Satsuma" for the band. YOU'RE WELCOME!

Anyway, obviously the first thing I did was compare this Keep Cup to the  reusable take-away cups I already had.

Initially, I thought the Keep Cup was slightly larger and was a little upset that I'd obviously been marginally overcharged for my hot drinks for six years, but to check, I performed the very scientific experiment of filling the old one up with cold water, and pouring it into the new one.

I did spill a bit, because I am slack and clumsy, so taking that into account, they're actually the same volume, just different dimensions. SCIENCE!

I haven't used it out yet, since I just got it today, but here I am using it at home:

#SELFIE!

I promise I'll brush my hair before I use it in public. Probably.

You can buy your own Keep Cup here. If you design one in Gladys, let me know and we can be twinsies! If you design one in a different colour scheme, let me know what you call your creation!

If you don't want to design your own, I recommend this one that is modelled on the dog man from the Star War, or if you want everyone to know you're a good person without having to tell them, you can go for this Sea Shepherd one over here or that 1 Million Women one over there. No, but seriously, Sea Shepherd and 1 Million Women are both organisations close to my heart, which I will talk more about some time when I'm not talking about cups and myself instead.

Lots of love,

Cassandra Louise.

This post has been shared on the May "Snapped Up" Linky Party

And on Deep Fried Fruit's Lovin' Life Linky Party