I have had a 1L narrow mouth Nalgene bottle on my desk for couple of months now. I just noticed that the Nalgene logo and "Made in USA" printing has softened up and can be scraped off with VERY light pressure.

The graduations on the other side are still firm and hard.

Has anyone else experienced this?

It's not affecting the utility of the bottle. I'm just wondering why it's happening.


(I work in a print shop, and my theory is airborne solvents.)

Hmm, interesting theory. One thing wasn't clear to me--has the bottle been on your desk in the print shop? Then that would seem a plausible theory. But if you mean your desk at home...I'd be more skeptical about there being enough solvents wafting around in the air at home to do this.

Are the graduated markings printed on the same way as the logo, with similar "ink"? If so, then that would probably be an argument against airborne solvents since they should attack all the printing on the bottle pretty evenly, I would think.

Heheh. Yes, on my desk at work.

The graduations look and feel different from the logo. They are smooth, and flat to the surface. The logo always felt slightly "raised", like it was sitting on top of the surface. I suspect the graduations were imprinted during manufacture, and the logo was printed later.

I have one where that was happening. I figured it was due to the fact that I would freeze it half full and fill with water the next day. Then later in the day fill to max capicty with ice with ice cold water over. When the condensatio would begin to stop the print would become stickier and rub off with a finger nail. I just made a mental note to not grab on the logo and it hasn't peeled any further.

Yep.

Don't mind loosing the logo. The scale is usually of sterner stuff, and that is the ONLY mark I want on my Nalgenes.

I went as far as to deliberatly scrape off the logo with a knife on my nalgene. Bottle looks much nicer that way.

I showed it to my boss, in case it represented a hazardous level of solvents in the air. (30+ years' experience vs. my not quite 20.)

He started peeling it (damaged already, I didn't care), and it's some kind of vinyl applique. He said it could be airborne solvents (it wouldn't take much, thin as this is) or it could be just moisture loosening it. Since I fill it with ice water each morning, moisture's a definite possibility.

The rest has been scraped off with a card, and it's nice and clean.

Thanks for the input, all!