The soap is liquid and not under pressure. When you pump the dispenser you get a completely foamed spurt of soap. How does the dispenser do this? If you pump a normal hand soap dispenser you get regular liquid soap not foamed soap.
http://www.soap.com/p/dial-complete-antibacterial-foaming-hand-wash-63487
According to Wikipedia, the dispenser has a dual pump; one for air and one for soap. The air gets injected into the soap.
And you can refill it with any diluted liquid soap.
Does anyone make refills for this type of dispenser, that have regular soap rather than anti-bacterial soap? I have bought a couple foaming hand-soap dispensers that have Spongebob Squarepants on the front. The store has refills (big jugs of soap with no pump) of foaming soap from various brands, but they are all antibacterial soaps with Triclosan. I don’t want to slather Triclosan everywhere because I don’t think it’s necessary and I don’t want to breed Triclosan-resistant bacteria.
Aside from being cool-looking, what’s the advantage of foaming soap?
Don’t get me wrong; I’ve raised a couple of yard apes myself, and anything that convinces them to wash their hands more often is a Good Thing. Just curious to see if there was another reason.
Less waste, at least ideally. The great gobs of liquid soap that most people would use (including myself) are much more than is really necessary. A couple teaspoons of thick liquid soap is enough to wash a sinkful of dishes, so it’s a huge waste to use that much on your hands. You really just need enough to get a layer of slightly soapy water all over. That handful of foamy soap, being mostly water and air, has less soap than a small squirt of thicker liquid soap. Plus, since it isn’t so thick, it’s easier to scrub and rinse away, so there’s potentially less water use as well.
That won’t matter much in your bathroom at home, but it can add up to pretty significant savings in a big public bathroom.
As Needs coffee says you can refile these with any liquid soap you want. You need to dilute it. about 3 parts water to 1 part soap is good. You might need to experiment.
The above only works with the pumps that have easy access to the soap reservoir. Some pumps have non refillable cartridges.
I usually use whatever shampoo is in the bathroom, diluted about 1 part shampoo to 5 parts water. If I bothered to think about it while at the store, I’d probably just buy a big bottle of liquid bath soap, but by using shampoo I don’t have to store an extra bottle of soap. I’ve been doing this with the same re-used pump foam bottle for many years now. Huge moneysaver.
I’ve noticed plenty of normal soap dispensers with little pools of liquid soap beneath them. I’ve never noticed a foaming dispenser with a pool beneath it. I assume that’s the reason.
I’d love to see a breakdown of profit for the manufacturers:
bars soap vs liquid soap vs foaming soap.
They have to be making a ton of money off of the foaming soap dispensers, if people don’t refill their own.
Does shampoo work well as soap?