Squid Soap Leaves A Mark

Getting a young child to properly wash their hands is difficult, so when a friend recommended we try SquidSoap I quickly snatched up this new product. It was attractive, fun and interactive, which is everything needed to keep our son’s attention. My hope was that he’d even remember to wash his hands after using the bathroom and meals without a dozen reminders.

My initial reaction was that this would a genius product until I used it. This product was featured in several parenting magazines last fall as a hot new item, so you may have seen it.

When you press down on the pump with the palm of your hand the small circular ring on top will leave an ink marking, much like squids release ink. The diagram and pictures on their website indicate it is an orange ring, but in reality it is black. After you wash for 15-20 seconds the ink will disappear as well as the germs! The ink is completely safe and even edible! (Just in case you try and wash your child’s mouth out with soap.)

You can purchase 4 bottles for around $16, which isn’t too bad. Each come with a stretchy squid that can detach and be played with. Ours, however, ripped rather easily, as it was made of very thin material.

Unfortunately, we encountered quite a few problems with the SquidSoap. Our son takes his precious time messing around in the bathroom. You know how fascinating a sink with water can be. If he pressed the ink on his hand and didn’t wash right away, it was very difficult to remove. The ink dried up about half-way through the bottle and I tried their suggestion of adding a drop of water to the ring, but it didn’t help. I admit this could have been the result of our son using more than one stamp per hand washing.

My other issue was that SquidSoap is advertised as a way to get kids to clean their dirty hands and therefore to prevent the spread of infection and food-borne illnesses. But they also state that “it is not an anti-bacterial soap.” Any soap is better than no soap, but this seems a little misleading.

Overall it’s fun for kids, but a bit messy for adults. For now we’ll stick with our easy, don’t-have-to-pay-shipping Kandoo froggy soap.