How long can / should FO sit in plastic bottle?

[SRez]

So.... I have some oils that are getting close to 2 years old sitting in the original plastic bottles that they came in...  CS, NG, Aztec, Midwest and a couple others.  

 

At what point should I move / should have moved them into glass bottles?  I assume the type of plastic these bottles are made of will make a difference as well.  

[kandlekrazy]

It really depends on both the type of plastic and the fo itself.  I found heavy vanilla and sometimes citrus will cause the bottles to cave in at which time I would switch them to glass.  99% of the time the oils remain in the same bottle purchased in.  Once I had about 10 bottles purchased at the same time from a supplier where the bottles started to morph and I changed them all out but that happened once in 30+ years.  I think that was a batch of fo where the supplier changed their bottles only to find they didn't work out.

[SRez]

4 hours ago, kandlekrazy said:

It really depends on both the type of plastic and the fo itself.  I found heavy vanilla and sometimes citrus will cause the bottles to cave in at which time I would switch them to glass.  99% of the time the oils remain in the same bottle purchased in.  Once I had about 10 bottles purchased at the same time from a supplier where the bottles started to morph and I changed them all out but that happened once in 30+ years.  I think that was a batch of fo where the supplier changed their bottles only to find they didn't work out.

Thanks. I have a few of them where the bottles are collapsing / caving in. Those are  (for lack of better words) the clear/smoked looking bottles. 

 

[KrisS]

If it's something that matters, I move it into amber glass.  If I don't care if it goes rancid, it can stay in floppy plastic indefinitely.

[SRez]

3 hours ago, KrisS said:

If it's something that matters, I move it into amber glass.  If I don't care if it goes rancid, it can stay in floppy plastic indefinitely.

I hear ya. In my case though, I haven't even tried a lot of these. So... yeah... I should probably get on that 😁. 

[Belinda]

I've had several bottles collapse like you're talking about but I've had it do that with clear bottles and also white ones. So far none of the round bullet bottles have done it. I'm not sure what causes that. Some even crack at the sides after it collapses.

[BenderSF]

Yeah, I just finished a rebottling project for my aging FO stash.  I moved anything that was in HDPE bottles, which tend to collapse (and stink) into PET bottles.  I started with glass but I have too many oils and glass gets really heavy really quickly, so I went with PET for most of them.

 

My oldest oils had been sitting in HDPE bottles for 3.5 years.  I assume they must have lost some strength during that time.  I put a couple in wax recently and it wasn't really noticeable but I feel better knowing they're in PET bottles now.  And my closet stinks slightly less now.  😆

[SRez]

1 hour ago, Belinda said:

I've had several bottles collapse like you're talking about but I've had it do that with clear bottles and also white ones. So far none of the round bullet bottles have done it. I'm not sure what causes that. Some even crack at the sides after it collapses.

If you mean the round bullet like the CS ones, yup, I've noticed that too. Some of them slightly sucked in but not like the other types of bottles I have. I haven't noticed cracks yet though. Something to look out for. 😬

[SRez]

20 minutes ago, BenderSF said:

Yeah, I just finished a rebottling project for my aging FO stash.  I moved anything that was in HDPE bottles, which tend to collapse (and stink) into PET bottles.  I started with glass but I have too many oils and glass gets really heavy really quickly, so I went with PET for most of them.

 

My oldest oils had been sitting in HDPE bottles for 3.5 years.  I assume they must have lost some strength during that time.  I put a couple in wax recently and it wasn't really noticeable but I feel better knowing they're in PET bottles now.  And my closet stinks slightly less now.  😆

I had to look up HDPE and PET bottles. It's the HDPE that I have that are collapsing. Time to make the move I guess. I was wondering at what point does the oil seep into the plastic or plastic break down into the oil. 🤔

[BenderSF]

8 minutes ago, SRez said:

I was wondering at what point does the oil seep into the plastic or plastic break down into the oil.

 

Yeah, I tried to find a definitive answer to that question but couldn't.  I suspect that the answer is "immediately" regardless of the type of plastic, but really what we care about is "how long before it actually makes a measurable difference?"  Darn, now that I think of it, I probably did have two bottles of the same oil, around the same age, one in HDPE and one in PET.  I wish I had thought to compare them to see if I could notice any difference before I rebottled. ☹️

[Belinda]

On 4/16/2022 at 3:14 PM, SRez said:

If you mean the round bullet like the CS ones, yup, I've noticed that too. Some of them slightly sucked in but not like the other types of bottles I have. I haven't noticed cracks yet though. Something to look out for. 😬

Yep, those are the ones I was talking about LOL! So far I don't remember any of those doing it but I will check my oils!