It wasn’t so long ago that the Stanley cup was the object of desire of young women and girls, causing stampedes in Target stores and wreaking havoc across middle schools. But the trends have shifted: The colorful Owala FreeSip bottle is now the must-have water bottle for Gen Z.
And there’s still drama.
The Owala bottles, which cost $27.99 for the 24-ounce version, feature surprising, seemingly random colorways with fun names like Poolside Punch, Sunny Daze, or Tangy Tango. Tan bottles are paired with orange-and-green lids, for example, and bright pink bottles come with lids sporting a mix of tan, gray, and red.
Some customers don’t love these color combinations, so they’re making their own bespoke Owalas by swapping bottle lids on store shelves.
Caroline Nguyen, a parent in Texas who makes TikTok videos about parenting and shopping, noticed that in her local Target store, the bottle-and-lid color combinations in the Owala section were pure chaos.
She told BI that so many lids had been swapped that it was impossible to guess which was the correct combination. She found a white bottle, for example, with five different lid options.
Business Insider visited a Target in Virginia and found that the Owala area featured some mismatched bottles — including three tan bottles with three different lids.
“We encourage customers to think about other Owala fans and refrain from swapping lids across bottles at any retailers,” Holly Bennet, a PR representative for Owala, told Business Insider.
Owala sells replacement lids on its website for $6.99, which customers can buy to mix and match colors.
Lid swapping is not a completely victimless crime. The Frankensteined water bottles are causing a headache for some Target workers, according to two employees and dozens of Reddit and TikTok posts from people who say they work for the retailer. In some cases, the mismatched Owala bottles have been rounded up to either be trashed, donated, or returned to Owala, the employees and posts said.
A Target retail employee in Texas told BI that they were finding four to five mismatched bottles a week earlier in the summer, and that the problem has worsened in recent weeks. The employees who spoke to BI asked to remain anonymous since they were not authorized to speak for Target. BI verified their employment.
“Once back to school hit or we’d get a new release of colors, it would bump up to two or three per day since we were one of the busiest stores in the district,” the Texas employee said.
A couple of mismatched Owalas a day could add up quickly if this is happening at many Target stores.
“It doesn’t sound like a lot, but we were told to damage out two bottles per one swapped bottle to account for the fact that it was a Frankenstein creation from two existing colors,” the Texas employee said, referring to their supervisors’ initial instructions for tracking the mismatched inventory.
Later, the instructions changed: The employee said they were told to stop removing the mismatched bottles from inventory and leave them for people to buy.
A Target employee in Massachusetts told BI that the mismatched bottles have also created problems with online orders.
“The cups shown on the website are the specific color scheme that was designed and sent to us by Owala, so if the lid was switched, we can’t sell the specific cup they requested,” the employee said.
Target did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Nguyen, who has her own (correctly matching) Owala FreeSip, is sympathetic to those who are doing the lid swapping. “I think people are just trying to get the color combo they like without realizing the problem it causes for the stores,” she said.
Carly Christy, a college student, said she lid-swapped to make a tan bottle with a tan-and-green lid. She posted a TikTok apologizing after seeing so many other videos about how it was a problem.
“I’m really happy with my Owala and use it every day, but now that I know switching lids causes issues for target employees and stuff I wouldn’t do it again,” she told Business Insider.
