im looking for something to clean/sterilise water bottles and make them smell better, in the uk i would use milton im thinking there must be similar here but i dont know what to ask for, any suggestions will be appreciated.

They smell bad? You might want to get new bottles. Good quality water bottles have no smell of any kind. Highly diluted laundry bleach can be used to sterilize them but make sure you rinse them well.

I also use laundry bleach to clean mine every once in awhile. The Haiter brand of bleach is availble here in just about any supermarket.

There are a few options:

- branded cleaning tablets like those from CamelBak (very expensive)

- laundry bleach (cheap, but tends to leave a strong chlorine taste)

- denture cleaner powder or tablets (reasonably cheap, easy to use, no aftertaste)

- baby bottle sterilisation tablets (reasonably cheap, easy to use, no aftertaste)

Cheers, CM-Expat

" ,,, in the uk i would use milton ... "

Who is Milton, and would you really pay someone to clean your bottles?

Its actually a good question because if you use the electrolytes in them as I do then because there is a lot of sugar in the liquid it doesn't take long for that black bacteria type stuff to accumulate even when washing them out with dish washer soap.

Today I tried the stuff that cleans the stains off toilets ( a blue liquid ) but it didn't make a lot of difference so I tried a bit of "promax" what appears to be a very unconcentrated bleach and it worked a treat, plenty of flushing and there wasnt any smell either

Has anyone tried to clean their water bottle with hydrogen peroxide?

In the past I've used hydrogen peroxide, but have settled on ubiquitous laundry bleach. Easier to find and cheaper by far. But they both work.

My poor Thai makes it harder to get the unscented stuff here than it would be back home, but the blue bottles seem to be unscented. The pink stuff seems to leave a perfume smell and that's not what I want in my drinking water.

After a (very diluted) bleach rinse, I leave them in the sun to evaporate the bleach. I've never noticed a bleach odor after a little time in the sun.

In the past I've used hydrogen peroxide, but have settled on ubiquitous laundry bleach. Easier to find and cheaper by far. But they both work.

My poor Thai makes it harder to get the unscented stuff here than it would be back home, but the blue bottles seem to be unscented. The pink stuff seems to leave a perfume smell and that's not what I want in my drinking water.

After a (very diluted) bleach rinse, I leave them in the sun to evaporate the bleach. I've never noticed a bleach odor after a little time in the sun.

I've used baby sterilisation for years - even with electrolytes.