I purchased a blue Porter bowl from Marshall's. It was marked down to $3 because the band was missing. I didn't realize that was the case until I looked up the brand online. The band is useful if you're traveling and need to secure the lid. I've used the bowl every day for two months. Save for standard scratch marks from utensils, it is durable, holds two portions of food (hot or cold; soups and salads) and is microwaveable. I love the portability of the bowl and the various colors. Opted to buy another this to use for lunch and the first one for food storage. Two observations: 1. The bowl is too big to fit flat in a standard lunch bag, but since I'm primarily remote, it's not a deal-breaker. I'd rather be compelled to eat more salad 2. Sometimes being fancy isn't practical. Colors include slate, charcoal and black. From the pictures, it appeared that slate would match the gray portable utensil set I purchased from another brand. Slate is more of a light grey. Whereas, charcoal is dark gray and black is black. Even on a color swatch palette, 'slate' grey wouldn't be light grey so marketing missed it on description. To resolve, I returned the light grey and purchase dark grey instead. UPDATE: 12.27.20 I made the unfortunate mistake of leaving the lid on while microwaving food—this to prevent contents from splattering in microwave. Well, heating for 2:25 minutes was long enough for the ‘microwave safe’ plastic to ‘cook’ on the inside. The result was seasoning melted w/the plastic and after attempting to wash the caked on food off, white ‘moon ridges’ appeared where the bowl was once smooth and dark gray. Mrs. Dash seasoning is still visible in the ridges left behind by food melted in place. To avoid stains and melting, I normally use Rubbermaid’s glass like plastic bowls (see pic), which I’ve used to heat the same thing and they don’t have holes to allow heat to escape. I paid about $32 for a whole set of Rubbermaid bowls in different sizes. Have had them for > 1YR with no melting. ONE Porter bowl costs $25 and isn’t as durable as it seems. At best, you can use it for sandwiches, fruit, veggies, salads, soup (freeze your soup to transport it w/o spilling), and anything that doesn’t require a lot of heat. With the lid on, the bowl will cook on the inside and that’s both unhealthy and unsafe (bottom side of bowl was hot to handle for minutes after being microwaved). I was surprised that neither the outside of the bowl nor the lid melted, which is to say that the outside is more durable than the inside. Still, it’s a $25 product so, unless you get a discount, invest in the hard plastic as seen in the Rubbermaid pic. Other things to note: Be practical vs. cute. If 2.25 mins of heat can melt the interior, seasoning and butter together, it will also stain white, pink and mint green bowls. Also, odors from any ‘baked in’ foods won’t disappear even though the bowl is clean.
