I Tried a Hands-Free Automatic Soap Dispenser at Home and I’ll Never Go Back
It makes complete sense that the place I go to wash my hands is dirty, but it weirds me out just the same that my kitchen sink could be a cross-contamination station. After I season chicken or change a dirty diaper (sorry, it’s my life), I don’t want to turn my soap dispenser pump into a breeding ground for viruses and bacteria. My genius solution? I bought a touchless, automatic soap dispenser I found on Amazon.
The dispenser is so simple to use, which I was surprised by. Basically, you fill the little tank with foaming hand soap, then put your dirty hand below the dispenser, and it automatically shoots out, with zero touching, just the right amount of germ-ridding liquid. Which leads me to another reason I needed this product: My kids, bless their toddler hearts, use either way too much or way too little soap. I was hoping the automatic part would save money and prevent waste—and, just as importantly, keep us all safe from illness.
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Turns out, I am absolutely obsessed with this thing. So much so that I bought a second one for my bathroom, where my children go to wash their hands after school and trips out to the store.
First of all, my boys love to use what they call the “Robot Soap.” The dispenser illuminates a blue smiley face when it dishes out the soap, as if to remind us we just dodged some germs. I mostly love it because it’s efficient and clean. I spent a good amount of time sanitizing and cleaning our glass dispensers (which honestly got grimy and smelly relatively quickly), so it’s nice to have one less thing to clean.
The touch-free soap dispenser came in super handy when my 3-year-old had the flu. I was preparing to go on a trip and really didn’t want to get sick, so I washed my hands about a hundred times a day. Not saying it was the soap dispenser that kept me healthy, but knowing how easily and quickly I could wash up turned a switch on in my brain that kept committed to hand-washing.
I’m also surprised by how long the soap itself has lasted. We filled the tank once when we bought the dispenser almost three weeks ago, and it’s not even close to empty yet. (And it’s not as though it dispenses too little soap—I definitely feel like I’m getting enough to wash my hands thoroughly.)
My only complaint is that the motion sensor seems super, well, sensitive. If you’re washing your hands nearby, be careful, or the soap might dribble out of the dispenser (kind of reminds me when my son asked for his 50-cent allowance and our Google Home started playing “In Da Club” by 50 Cent, the rapper). It’s also a little annoying that when you pick up the actual dispenser, it separates from the soap tank, but I only dealt with that when I set ours up and moved it to the bathroom.
All in all, I’d highly recommend an automatic soap dispenser for anyone who wants less cleaning and fewer germs in their house. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and most importantly, it’s lots of fun.