Retro soap dispensers

[fan-of-fans]

These are kind of "before my time" but I think they are very neat looking, and from what I understand these were in older buildings. I've seen some for sale online that appear to be from the 1920s-1950s era. Some have glass containers instead of plastic.

Anyway, I thought they were very cool looking and could be useful so I ordered two of these on Amazon. They are EZ Flo brand, and the chrome parts are all metal, and the valve inside is brass. They look pretty durable.

You can get similar ones on Ebay for $10 with free shipping, but they are all plastic, so I figured these would hold up better being metal.

What do you all think?? You can see some pictures in the reviews of how they actually look installed.

They are smaller than I expected. I was expecting them to come in a box on my front porch, but I actually found them in a bag in my regular sized mailbox. So they are pretty small.

https://www.amazon.com/EZ-FLO-15270...B011PFKPZ8,B07MB1SH1G,B06XD8N7N4,B08BNNGHWM%2

 

[huskyvacs]

I think I actually seen one before at Restore, they had it with the lamps, and I thought it was a lamp. Now that I think back on it it might have been an old dispenser. A lot of modern soaps are really thick, I assume that's why these became obsolete.

 

[fan-of-fans]

thick soaps

I think you're right on that. These do have to have a particular viscosity range of soap to work, and I have heard of people watering down their soaps to work with them. I haven't tried mine yet so can't say what types of soaps will dispense.

Somewhere I've also heard of these being used with powdered soap.

 

[human]

My elementary school had soap dispensers like that that were all metal. They were pretty but the downside was you couldn't see if they were full or empty. I also remember powdered soap dispensers but they had a different mechanism, you had to twist the bottom to make the soap come out.

Another reason those old fashioned dispensers have gone by the wayside is in most modern restrooms, the dispensers use soap in a plastic bladder. It's quicker and easier to refill with less mess and they generally have much larger capacity. I've been in restrooms in older buildings where the traditional dispensers are essentially abandoned in place (and in varying states of disrepair) with a modern dispenser on the wall next to it.

 

[texaskirbyguy]

Wow - these are cool! I would actually install these in my house.

So do they live up to the size comparison picture with the lady's hand under it? They do look about 6" tall there but I remember them in public facilities being about 10" or so. Regardless, I still like them. And for only 13 bucks and decent quality construction, they would be worth it.

I remember some of the very old ones with the ornate glass jars - I would love to have a couple of those.

Here at work we have a more watery hand soap that would work well in these. However here they put them in soft-soap pump containers instead, go figure...

 

[fan-of-fans]

Measurements

I just measured one of mine, it's 6 3/4" from the top of the bottle to the bottom of the push valve. From the side, it's about 5 1/4" from the back edge of the wall bracket to the front of the bottle. The picture with the handle is pretty accurate.

If you scroll down to the reviews there are some photos of them taken in kitchens and bathrooms.