BEAUTIFUL BENDS

Style at its best, the Beautiful Bend has a grace all its own.  Slightly bent to “reach” for your lips, this straw is slightly longer and has the same clarity and sparkle of all of our straws. The perfect accompaniment to the well stocked beverage bar. Available in two diameters - 9.5mm and 12mm.

Everyone that has seen these straws are filled with delight.  Not just because they promote health and are environmentally friendly, but that they do these things with elegance and style.

Plain and simple, here’s how and why they work:

• Glass straws don’t leach toxins into your food as you drink.
• Each time you use your glass straw equals one less plastic straw ending up in your landfill.
• One glass straw replaces thousands of plastic straws. (How many times will you use a straw the rest of your life?)
• Using your glass drinking straw adds a feeling of beauty to your day.

GlassDharma glass drinking straws are:

• Made of borosilicate tubing and is the strongest glass commercially available.
  Means that we have spared no expense in bringing you the strongest, most durable drinking straw possible.

• Annealed to Corning, Inc. specifications (a process that strengthens the glass).
  So you can have confidence you are purchasing the highest quality glass straws available.

• Made of glass which does not leach ANY TOXINS into your food.
  So you can use your non-toxic straws with confidence.

• Created with the beauty and elegance that only glass can give.
  You’ll feel like royalty – with a touch of ‘glass’.

• A great environmental addition to your kitchenware.
  Great for hot or cold drinks, microwave and dishwasher safe!!

• Covered with our unbelievable Lifetime Guarantee Against Breakage.
  If for any reason you are not satisifed--or should your glass straw break--please contact info@glassdharma.com for instructions on returning your straw. Although they offer this unbelieveable guarantee, they are NOT claiming that they are unbreakable (Any more than your Pyrex coffee pot or pie plate would be.) Purposely "testing" GlassDharma straws is not advised and in such case may result in the guarantee being voided.
  
  
• Hand-made in the U.S.A

Imagine how you’ll feel the next time someone hands you a plastic straw and you’ll be able to say “Oh, no thank you!  I have my own!” and you pull out your own personal glass straw. It’s like going to the grocery store and telling the clerk, “I brought my own bags, thank you” with the “Being green means passing on paper or plastic” logo on the side.

You know when you are doing your part and it feels good!! 

What Makes Us Different?

While avoiding the technical aspects of glassblowing as much as possible, this is what sets us apart from others in our field:

Techniques used to create glass sculpture using a blowtorch involve rapid heating and cooling.  It is particularly the rapid and uneven cooling that induces significant stress levels in the glass that create cracks and breakage.  Each type of glass has a unique temperature range in which it may be fired in a kiln.  This process is called “annealing” and eliminates excessive stress in the glass.

As you may have experienced, not all glass is created equal!!  Not all hand-blown glass has gone through this process and the result is sometimes seen as cracks and breaks, possibly occurring even years later.  To further complicate things, the annealing process, we found, is understood “differently” by various glass artists.

At GlassDharma, we adhere to a formula for annealing our glass art with specifications and guidelines provided by Corning, Inc., (the makers of Pyrex®).  I have spent hours on the phone with their technical support staff to ensure that I understood this process thoroughly. This understanding allows us to create works of art with the highest level of durability possible and insures consistency with everything we make. We anneal everything we make under computer controlled conditions.

Keep in mind how strong and durable your glass coffeepot or pie plate is.  It is made from exactly the same type of glass (borosilicate) that we use in every piece we make!  You will be impressed with the “forgiveness” our creations demonstrate when they encounter another object.

Another factor that will affect the strength of a glass object is the fusing technique used by the glass artist.  Fusing is the joining of one piece of glass to another (i.e. adding a “Decorative Dot” on a drinking straw).  Quality fusing occurs when BOTH pieces of glass are heated to a high enough temperature when joined.  If this is not done, (i.e. one or both pieces are NOT hot enough) the result is an inferior joint and subject to break much more easily than when fused properly.

We take great pride in the workmanship of every piece we make.  We use exclusively borosilicate glass (Simax®).  Occasionally a crack may occur unnoticed before the annealing process takes place.  This would significantly weaken the glass.  We guarantee all of our work against such rare defects.  It is also because these defects are sometimes difficult to detect that we guarantee against ANY breakage.  This gives you the benefit of the doubt!

Our goal is to make dealing with GlassDharma a risk free endeavor for you.  Our Satisfaction Guarantee along with our Lifetime Guarantee Against Breakage …
You have nothing to loose ! … and everything to gain.  This is my personal commitment to you.

David Leonhardt, owner