If you’re going to get a kid to wash his/her hands regularly, you’ve got to make it entertaining. The standard soap bottle and water trick gets old very fast. Kids are going to learn how to innocently tell you that they washed their hands soon enough when, in reality, those hands are crawling with all sorts of odd bacteria.

You might as well try the Soap Genie, an automatic soap dispenser. It doesn’t actually look very kid friendly, but come on, you put your hand under the dispenser and soap magically comes out. That’ll amuse just about anybody for some period of time, some longer than others ;). A musical chime is played every time soap is dispensed, which kids may like, but I’m sure you’ll turn it off after the 3rd time.

Just place your hand in the vicinity of the infrared sensor and the soap will be automatically dispensed. You can adjust the sizes, too. No matter how small or big, there’s still no mess, no dripping onto the counter or anything.

Soap isn’t the only thing it can dispense; it will handle all sorts of lotions, creams, even sunscreen. The Soap Genie handles about 12 ounces of whatever you put in it and measures 7.5” tall and has a 3.5” base. There aren’t any wires; you can use either 4 AAA or 4 AA batteries that should last for about a year.

You can get your Soap Genie in two colors, either white or black, from Sharper Image for $40.