Medicine Bottles

From left: 100-ml bottle with olive oil, 60-ml with sriracha sauce, 15-ml with powdered spice mix

Whether this will come as a surprise to anyone else, I don't know, but it took me some time to discover the convenience of using medicine bottles to pack both cooking ingredients and bathing supplies. Coming in a variety of sizes ranging from 10-100 milliliters (and maybe even bigger), these plastic bottles are made of thin, semi-disposable plastic (like Gladware) and primarily used by pharmacies to dispense prescription medications for children in liquid form. They're given out free with the paid meds, but the pharmacy will usually toss in a few (empty) freebies if requested, or sometimes for a small price, like 100 won (less than a dime) each. Compared to anything else out there (e.g., commercially sold mini-containers, sample bottles of cosmetic products) that's often used for the same purposes, the medicine bottles are superior in many ways: they're much lighter, virtually or actually free, which means you can afford to lose them or throw them away when necessary, and they come in whatever size you specifically need. On the flip side, because they're so flimsy, they can get kinda crumpled after a couple uses and don't stand up to washing very well--but again, cheap enough for no-sweat replacement.

In the photo above, I packed the marinade ingredients for lamb skewers. I also used medicine bottles for sunscreen, moisturizer, and Kiehl's Cross Terrain All-in-One Refueling Wash (reviewed in a prior post).