A mum has turned her son's empty Prime drink bottles into bedroom lamps - as the teen treasured the trash and refused to throw them away. Pauline Murphy was clearing out 13-year-old Alfie Riley's bedroom to decorate it for his birthday on January 8, when she discovered a drawer full of the empty bottles on top of more stashed in her kitchen cupboards.
The 51-year-old says the teen has been 'raving' about the popular energy drink for months and didn't want to throw out the 'cool' colourful containers, which are difficult to get hold of due to high demand. So the mother and son duo came to a compromise of keeping one of each colour bottle and decorating them with string lights to act as bedroom lamps.
The pair, who have six out of the seven flavours available in the UK, are now on the hunt for the final one they need to complete their set - Grape flavour. But the staggering popularity of the product means they are forced to travel to different cities and pay over the odds to get their hands on any of the drinks.
Pauline, from Huyton, Merseyside, said: "I was decorating his bedroom for his birthday. I bought him new drawers and there were all these empty bottles in the bottom of his old drawers. With Alfie when he likes something that's it, he won't throw it away it has to be the same.
"I said 'my cupboards are full mate and your drawers upstairs' so he said 'well can we just keep one of each colour?' and I said yes. It was my boyfriend who said 'put lights in them and put them on the shelf' and I said 'don't be daft' but then I thought I'd give it a go.
"I ordered [lights] and they came with this little cork and I put Blu-Tack on the lid, put them in and I thought 'oh my god, they look lovely'. They're all around his room so at night it's lit up with PRIME bottles. I think it's the cool drink. If you've got one in school you're cool.
"He loves it, he's over the moon. The first thing he said was 'how many can we do?'. He's just made up with his PRIME room. The thing with Alfie is if he's got one he's got to have the full set. We've got one left to get - the Grape one - I've got everyone's eyes peeled in the shops looking for it."
The keen gamer came across Prime Hydration while watching Youtube videos including those of the internet stars behind the energy drinks - Logan Paul and KSI. According to the website the popular drinks contain 10 percent coconut water, branch-chain amino acids (for 'muscle recovery'), B vitamins, antioxidants and electrolytes.
The drink currently comes in seven flavours in the UK - Ice Pop, Blue Raspberry, Tropical Punch, Lemon Lime, Meta Moon, Grape and Orange. Each flavour, which are sold at £24.99 for a 12-pack, are currently sold out on the PRIME UK website and are flying off the shelves at stores across the country as well.
Pauline and Alfie have travelled to shops in Liverpool and Warrington on the hunt for the drinks and have even paid up to £15 for a single one as demand has caused resale prices to sky-rocket. But the crafty pair have now made good use of the pricey bottles by turning trash into decor with 'wine-bottle string lights'.
Pauline said: "I wouldn't let him drink more than one a day because it's an energy drink so I thought he's going to be bouncing off the walls. They're quite hard to get hold of but I've had bottles after bottles and I've thrown them away without him knowing, not realising that I could've done something with them.
"They're lights for wine bottles and it's got a little plastic cork on the top so I put Blu-Tack on the cork and stuck it to the lid and unravelled all the lights and put them in so they were spread out in the bottle. I don't know how many messages I've had saying 'where did you get the lights from? How much were they? How did you put the lights in?' I didn't realise it would be so popular."
