Our Top Pick for Touch-Free Soap Dispensers



Equipment expert Adam Ried shares his pick for the best automatic hand soap dispensers.

Buy our winning automatic hand soap dispenser:

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39 Comments

  1. How dirty the soap dispenser is doesn't matter one bit because you're washing your hands. What you need to watch out for is the faucet handles/knobs. You touch those before when your hands are contaminated, then wash, and then touch the handles again after thereby contaminating your hands again. Much better to invest in a touchless faucet if you care about microbes that much

  2. The small Simple Human pump isn't built well, after 3-4 years ours quit. As did the replacement. And it chews through batteries, which must be inserted in the bottom, which encourages the soap fill to leak.
    Perhaps their more expensive model is better.

  3. I guess I am old school, I have a push type soap dispenser that I push with the back of my wrist so as not to contaminate it, then I use my wrist or arm to activate my lever handle on my faucet to turn that on.

  4. The problem with automatic soap dispensers in a kitchen is that you can't control the volume of soap dispensed. If your hands are greasy then you need a lot of soap. But if you are doing a number of decontamination washes between tasks your hands are mostly clean and you just need a dab of soap.
    Myself, I just fill a manual dispenser with Dawn for the kitchen and use it both for cleaning dishes and hands.

  5. I have used the non-winning (Umbra) one on the far left-umbra for 7 years in both my bathroom and kitchen. And they are still going strong, no issues. I choose it because it looks awesome on my counter and available in a variety of colours to suit my decor.

  6. Maybe I just don't get it, but why be so concerned about contaminating a soap dispenser? Whoever touches the 'contaminated' soap dispenser will be washing their hands immediately after, right? So why the fuss? I'd be more concerned about turning on the water with germy hands and then reinfecting your clean hands when turning it off.

  7. I bought a simplehuman auto soap dispenser, it worked for a month, exchanged it for a new one, that one worked for two months, so I just gave up. I just use a regular hand soap dispenser and use the side of my wrist to pump it.

  8. Automatic Soap Dispensers… Did l really need one? Apparently it was more fun than a barrel of monkeys for my younger Grandkids! Who knew five and three year old’s loved to wash their hands 20 to 30 times in a row! 😂🤣😂♥️👵🏻

  9. I wish you had also discussed what batteries were required, how many were needed and how easy it was to change them. Also how it holds up over time.I used the Simple Human dispenser you nominated as the winner. I liked it for the relatively short time it served its purpose, but opted for a manual pump version after that. I’m not sure you need to worry about contamination if you are washing your hands after you pump. – I love your videos. Please keep them coming.

  10. I was a fan of the winning pump but it takes 4xAA batteries and runs out fairly fast. Constantly changing and felt like I was killing the planet!

    Ended up going with the SimpleHuman rechargeable model (silver one in this video). Still a fan, feel it pumps out too much soap even on the lowest setting but haven’t run out yet (early days).

    They also have a foaming hands free dispenser I’m curious about too.

  11. I use the dispenser that is attached to the sink and it works fine. But I will say after handling raw chicken or have oily hands an auto-dispenser might be good. My concern would be how much soap it dispenses and can you adjust that? Looking at the video it appears all of these put out way more soap than you would need. I pea-sized amount of soap to me is enough and if I need more I’ll pump more.

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