Pumpheads: the gadgets that turn your empty glass bottles into soap dispensers
6.12.2023
Translation: Katherine Martin
Pumphead produces sets you can use to turn an ordinary glass bottle into a soap dispenser. The key component? A special seal. Founder David Brönnimann gave me a behind-the-scenes look at how they’re made.
Simplicity, upcycling, creativity. If I had to sum up the values David Brönnimann communicates through his brand, these three principles would do it best. The 31-year-old from Bern sees upcycling as an opportunity to extend the life cycle of an object. That’s why he founded the Pumphead brand and designed an attachment to turn old bottles into dispensers for soap, shower gel or disinfectant. I meet him at the Nimoulda AG manufacturing facility (linked website in German) in Täuffelen near Bern, where the most important component of David’s design is produced – the seal.
It all started with an empty bottle
In 2019, David established his first brand – a homemade spirits company called Lewa spirits GmbH (website in German). «I’d always wanted to start my own business, just not in my trained profession as a medical massage therapist,» says David. He was constantly rethinking his career options. That is, until the day he concocted his own ginger liqueur while living in a flatshare in the summer of 2019. The original plan was to simply take it to «Gurtenfestival» (a music festival in Bern) and drink it there. But the liqueur got such good feedback that David decided to take things a step further: «My flatmates lost interest in the drink after the festival, but I was hooked – I wanted to hone the recipe. I also worked on my own bottle design so that I could produce the liqueur for a wider market.»
Source: Pia Seidel
Source: Pia Seidel
If the liqueur bottle’s appearance hadn’t been so important to David, he’d never have come up with the idea for his second brand a year later. Pumphead resulted from an act of mindfulness: «I listened carefully to what my friends and family were saying about the liqueur. They often told me the bottles were so beautiful that they didn’t want to throw them out. For hygiene reasons, however, I couldn’t take them back and recycle them. That’s when I thought of upcycling.» David says the logo is what had the most appeal – a design partly inspired by the symbolic Bernese bear, and partly by the geometric tattoos he’d seen on his patients while he was working as a medical massage therapist.
Source: Pia Seidel
The design process
David went looking for a way to rescue the bottles from the recycling, keen to find a solution more creative than turning them into vases or candle holders. He came up with the idea of creating an attachment so that the bottles could be turned into functional yet pretty liquid soap dispensers. «At that point, we were in the middle of the pandemic. It wasn’t the best time to start a new company, but I saw potential. Shortly afterwards, I went on «Höhle der Löwen Schweiz» (translator’s note: Switzerland’s version of Dragon’s Den) because one of my customers signed me up. I won, so I kept at it.»
However, as is so often the case, the devil was in the detail. It took a while before the product could be launched in 2020. For Pumphead attachments to be able to fit any bottle, the right seal was needed first. David developed these in collaboration with Nimoulda, a company familiar with the challenges involved in manufacturing these kinds of small components. «The ridges on the first prototype weren’t spaced far enough part, so liquid was able to escape,» says Managing Director Patrick Strazzer, showing us the injection moulding machine churning out seal after seal. «We got started on a second attempt in order to cover the range of bottles David was looking for.»
With the first injection mould unusable, Patrick and his team had to make a new one. Their second model takes several steps to produce, some of which are carried out manually. During the stages carried out by machines, Nimoulda uses its own electricity, which it generates using solar panels on the roof. This is what powers the drilling machines capable of drilling the tiniest of holes. The energy used while all this is happening is also used to heat the workshop.
Source: Pia Seidel
Source: Pia Seidel
The second attempt not only delayed the product launch, but also cost more. When I ask David how he financed all this, he explains he was able to use his savings and profits from his first company. A short while later, the financial sacrifice paid off – the new prototype was able to fit any standard bottle with a thread, the term used to describe the grooves on a bottle neck.
An upcycling solution in a variety of looks
For spirits bottles such as Hendricks gin, which often have a cork finish, you just need an extra fastener to turn it into an eye-catcher. Each Pumphead is made of 304 stainless steel and is available in gold, black or copper. As a result, it matches various bottle colours. If you want, you can even mix your own soap using natural powder (page in German) to save on plastic.
David’s cautious about using the word «sustainability». He says, «I prefer the term 'upcycling' – I don’t believe the product itself is sustainable.» He’s aware that Pumphead isn’t a product you buy more than once. Once you have one or two at home, you’re already set. With no expectations of gaining repeat customers in the future, David plans to expand abroad. He’s also keen to get his message across: «With Pumphead, I want to demonstrate that something you’ve already paid for anyway can have a longer life than you think. Especially if you focus on the design and help create it yourself.»
Source: Photo: Pia Seidel
Pia Seidel
Senior Editor
Pia.Seidel@digitecgalaxus.chLike a cheerleader, I love celebrating good design and bringing you closer to everything furniture- and interior design- related. I regularly curate simple yet sophisticated interior ideas, report on trends and interview creative minds about their work.
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