While most people see only bland depictions of mountains or umbrellas when perusing the seemingly endless varieties of bottled waters on grocery store racks, Ballard resident Marie Nicholas saw something else: Opportunity.

With Nicholas’ Model on a Bottle, instead of a mountain, thirsty customers get musclebound and shirtless “Pro Fitness Model Hitch.” Instead of an umbrella, “Model Jayla Murray” in a black bikini stares out from the bottle.

The new business, owned and operated by Nicholas, has replaced company logos with labels full of scantily-clad models, musicians, athletes and potential celebrities – all unheard-of, but hungry for publicity.

She said the old labels were a missed opportunity for the multibillion-dollar bottled water industry to share the wealth.

"I think, especially in the modeling industry, the biggest thing they had was Sports Illustrated and Victoria's Secret,” Nicholas said. “With too much attention and focus on that area, it was kind of ignoring the rest of the talent out there."

Nicholas said she got an idea of what the industry was all about while working in a modeling agency when she was younger.

"It's a very competitive industry," she said. “(Model on a Bottle) would kind of give everybody a chance."

Nicholas saved up money to fund her new entrepreneurship and had to make a few sacrifices to get her new business off the ground.

"I ate a lot of soup, had no car, no cute clothes and no good food," she said.

Model on a Bottle existed strictly online at first, run out of Nicholas’ Ballard office at 7514 15th Ave. N.W. She opened her doors in July for interested talent to walk in and inquire about her business, she said.

So far, Model on a Bottle has had few walk-in clients. All of the photos used on the labels have been submitted to Nicholas through the Internet.

"As far as talent, it's online,” she said. “They send over pictures on my Web site, and they fill out a form. I check them out. I check all of their links and make sure nobody has nude photographs."

Nicholas has not yet been able to get her model-covered bottles onto store shelves, but she said she does have the name of an interested distributor.

"I guess what it comes down to is you really can't get the price low enough unless you have a really huge shipment, about 28 pallets," she said. "I'm trying to find investors and partners so we are be able to do that."

Nicholas has left room on the labels for interested businesses to post their advertisements.

In her business model, after she has paid models an original sum, future advertisers would pay them a flat fee for every 10,000 to 100,000 bottles the businesses choose to advertise on.

"I don't make a profit on the models,” Nicholas said. “I make a profit when I sell the water. That way everybody gets something from it.”

Through her sacrifices in the past two years, Nicholas’s commitment to Model on a Bottle has paid off, she said. She operated the business’s first booth at the Vashon Strawberry Festival this year and was invited to the Northwest Music Expo Aug. 29.

Nicholas said she hoped to get the word out about Model on a Bottle to the musicians at the Northwest Music Expo.

"I mean, they have concerts and venues, and it would be great to sell whatever there is with their face on it," she said. "You can peel that label off, stick it on your notebook, cut out a coupon – it's reposition-able."

Nicholas said the most rewarding part of Model on a Bottle is helping people.

"I figured this is the most people I can help with one product,” she said.