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Fearless-Celery@reddit

Quartino restaurant in Chicago has these in the bathrooms and they still dispense powder

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We always had liquid soap. However I came across powdered soap dispensers on my senior trip to Disney World and was weirded out. It was gritty like laundry powder. Totally makes sense at a place like Disney, less weight to shift around.

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tweakin_casually@reddit

Core memory unlocked

This shit was awful. Like. Omg i completely forgot how horrible everything about it was. From smell to look to feel. Earliest time I can remember having what I now know are sensory issues

Ew ew ew

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MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit

I actually liked it

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Effective_Cable6547@reddit

Same. I’d totally forgotten this stuff existed before this post and then the primary school memories came rushing back.

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ApplesBananasRhinoc@reddit

I had compartmentalized this soap trauma and forgotten, but now I can feel the disgust like I was 8 years old again!

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EagleEyezzzzz@reddit

Right??! And you had to mix it with water to turn it into a disgusting gritty paste that fucking reeked.

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agent_uno@reddit

I remember walking into the boys room in 5th grade and some prick decided it would be funny to throw it in the face of the next person who opened the door - he wasn’t targeting me specifically, just anyone. I caught it in the eyes and immediately couldn’t see anything.

Thankfully I was one room away from shop class where there was an eye-washing station. With the fire of hell in my eyes, I felt my way to that room and as soon as the shop teacher saw the powder on my face he grabbed me and flushed my face and I spent the rest of the day in agony in the nurses office.

Saw an eye doctor the next day and it didn’t do any permanent damage, but no one ever figured out who did it.

2 months later all the dispensers were changed to liquid ones.

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pathologuys@reddit

No suds whatsoever

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tweakin_casually@reddit

They really said "hey kids use dissolved sandpaper to wash your hands"

I just realized, we are the guinea pig generation

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mom_bombadill@reddit

Yup yup texture sensitivities, that soap is nightmare fuel, my skin is crawling rn

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daphuqijusee@reddit

Ugh no, we had this nasty green watery solution that smelled like plasticine clay and burned like a mofo when you had to clean off scrapes with it.

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Q-burt@reddit

Nah, but my grandpa's company had them in the restrooms. They did manufacturing in various rubber items. Might have even made your mom's dildo, though they were professional about it and labeled it "mining equipment" or some such nonsense.

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Sensitive-Review-712@reddit

I loved the powdered soap and the round multi-person sinks with the foot pedal that turned the water on. Then they built a new school and replaced them with liquid soap and automatic sinks that turned off way too soon.

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mariposa314@reddit

Did you go to Aurora Hills?

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ThresholdSeven@reddit

Wow, that unlocked a memory that I don't think I've remembered since early elementary school. Unless I'm dreaming, when I was in kindergarten or 1st grade, I remember a semi circular sink with a long curved footpedal around it that was in the hallway attached to the wall in between the doorways to the girls and boys room. There were no sinks inside the actual bathroom. When you came out and stepped on the pedal, a fountain of streams arched out from above the center of the sink like from a shower head, but spraying out in a single horizontal line around the sink. 5 or 6 kids could wash their hands at the same time as long as just one of them was holding down the pedal.

That might not even be what you're talking about. Anyone else remember a sink like that or was this in another dimension? Maybe they're common and I'm an ignoramus.

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Sensitive-Review-712@reddit

That's totally the kind of sink I mean! We had ones that were totally round in some of the bathrooms, not just semicircular.

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Dillenger69@reddit

Foot pedal round urinal!

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fubo@reddit

Goes well with one of those machines with a loop of fabric towel of dubious sanitation.

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rexallia@reddit

Yuck I forgot about those until your comment

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MsElena99@reddit

Wow, totally forgot about that soap. It was very rough along with rough paper towels, sad

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bringmethesampo@reddit

I would now prefer the abrasive powder above anything else.

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Girl_with_no_Swag@reddit

Wait. You guys had soap?!

I mean, we did have the bulbous shaped dispenser with the metal stem that you are supposed to push up on so the pink soap can drip out. But ours were all congealed and clogged and nothing would ever come out.

My mom bought me the little tiny sheets of paper soap that smelled like old church ladies to keep in my purse.

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CrowJane13@reddit

That soap was horrible. I remember it.

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Nobodyville@reddit

Oh yeah... like washing your hands with sand. I remember it tickled my palms and I hated it.

Also, did you have the tiny squares of TP in the small dispenser?

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quokkaqrazy@reddit

Did you also have squares of toilet paper that was more similar to the paper you pick up donuts with in the bakery section?!

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tasukiko@reddit

Yup, powdered hand soap, brown tear it off yourself paper towels and the round fountain sprinkler sink with the step bar pedal.

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violetstrainj@reddit

Was that the same powder they used to throw on bodily fluid spills?

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ThresholdSeven@reddit

I think that stuff is similar to the stuff thrown on spilled engine oil in a garage to absorb it and make it easier to scoop up. A common name for it is Floor-Dry.

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msgflava@reddit

You had to tap upward on the curved metal handle to get a small dusting of the powder. Our first experience with exfoliation before we knew what that was.

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bell83@reddit

Ours had a paddle you moved left and right to get it to dispense

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chamrockblarneystone@reddit

Ours had a glass ball and looked like it belonged in a saloon.

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MisRandomness@reddit

Yes, used it with the deep round concrete like sinks you press your foot to turn on.

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ThresholdSeven@reddit

I'm not the only one who remembers those sinks. I wonder if they are still around anywhere.

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Proud_Cauliflower400@reddit

Not going to lie, I miss that pink powdery not even soapy mess. What I wouldn't give to experience the hell that made me hate washing my hands.

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doomed_candy@reddit

Yes! My school had that soap! And those toilet paper dispensers that only gave you one square of t.p. at a time!

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Famous_Attention5861@reddit

I remember that stuff! It was a mixture of borax and soap powder.

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ApplesBananasRhinoc@reddit

The adults treated us like we were car mechanics. This soap couldn't have been for children!

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FIREnV@reddit

Is that true? How horrible. Borax is an endocrine disruptor!! Very unhealthy for humans to put directly on our bodies or breathe.

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Allaplgy@reddit

I used it until just a couple years ago in my shop. That plus Dawn makes the best mechanic soap. But a new uniform company stole our dispensers and put up those stupid foam soap things that are utterly useless even outside a greasy shop. So I've just been using straight Dawn every since. We do have Gojo, but I prefer the Dawn.

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ethan__l2@reddit

Very harsh smell that got up your nose.

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Pale_You_6610@reddit

Yes

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Famous_Attention5861@reddit

I think the harsh smell was borax. Boraxo powdered hand soap was like 75% borax, 25% soap.

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ethan__l2@reddit

My mom always kept some Boraxo under the sink. The smell was about the same.

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Res_Novae17@reddit

Holy shit I had forgotten this existed for like 35 years. I remember these long chromed stainless steel button like things you had to push to get a bit of it to fall out on your hand.

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Interesting-Set-5993@reddit

holy crap i had forgotten all about that stuff! I don't remember it being at school, though it may have been, I feel like it was in kid heavy public places like zoos? idk but I haven't thought about that for at least 3 decades.

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Salix-Lucida@reddit

They had them at Disney World in the 80s for sure!

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The-Rev@reddit

Call me crazy but when I use an exfoliating soap on my hands all I can think about is that gritty powdered soap.

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Lostarchitorture@reddit

Never experienced that stuff until I started college at University of Houston. Before that, it was always liquid soaps at my schools.

Interestingly enough, about two years into studying at UH, one of the main promises one guy running for a student president position involved replacing those metal powdered soap dispensers with liquid ones.

All of the old metal dispensers were replaced with those plastic liquid soap dispensers by my third year there.

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musicide@reddit

So help me god if this ever gets removed via some BS Mandela effect…

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Mindless_Jicama8728@reddit

Hell yeah I did. Went to school outside Baton Rouge. Restroom mirror was a sheet of polished steel. We didn’t have A/C and ate gumbo at lunch with bagged milk.

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harlembornnbred@reddit

I'm today years old when I found out this exists

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AZbitchmaster@reddit

I actually saw the inside of the dispenser once when the school custodian opened it up to refill the soap. It was probably the first time it needed to be refilled in 15 years. Anyway it's not powdered soap, its a big solid block of rock-hard pink soap. The twist handle on the outside of the dispenser rotates a serrated scraper that scraped away granules of soap into your once soft little kid hands. It would actually foam up like regular soap if you got enough scraped off the block, but that was like 30 seconds of twisting the scraper to get a sufficient amount.

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Limerance@reddit

I need to see a pic of these dispensers! Did we really turn a handle? I don’t remember that but I remember the powder soap.

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AZbitchmaster@reddit

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Limerance@reddit

😁 Thank you! Mind blown. I might actually have a buried memory of that!

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AZbitchmaster@reddit

There were ones that dispensed pre-powdered soap by pushing up on a lever too but the grinders were what we had at my grade school.

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pathologuys@reddit

Whaaaaat?!!! 🤯

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VaselineHabits@reddit

Holy shit, OP's description didn't bring back memories but you talking about the pink bar did. Snuck into an elementary school during spring break or something and just walked around.

Obviously some mischief was on the menu and I somehow busted open one of these and remember being SO confused over the pink bar.

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blue_suavitel@reddit

I looooove the cherry almond soap smell. Never heard of this soap powder

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VelvetMalone@reddit

We would mix it with some Elmer's glue, roll it around in our hands, and then have a pink bouncy ball to throw around the halls!

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yodellingllama_@reddit

We had the pink granules. Metal container on the wall with a plunger on the bottom. Smelled like clean to me.

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Plaid_Bear_65723@reddit

That and the circle fountain where anyone could step on the pedal and it would fountain out water. I feel like those were perfect for pandemic wonder why they went away

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MissKisskoli@reddit

Gritty and no suds

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Acrobatic-Mud-6293@reddit

I hated having to physically touch the metal piece to dispense it. Ugh, I can feel it now! So gross.

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2occupantsandababy@reddit

Yes!

I have a powder facial cleanser right now and I relive those glory days every morning.

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cellrdoor2@reddit

I have a 1940’s soap dispenser in my home bathroom that still uses this stuff! The one I buy is caked Pinerite. It’s not pink, more of a beige.

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Munk45@reddit

Boraxo!

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Ok-Kangaroo4613@reddit

Ours was blue.. … right? Like a light blue coarse powder. You had to smack up on the metal dispenser thing to get it out 🤮

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SpaceAdventures3D@reddit

Yes, I remember that stuff. Before liquid hand soap became the standard. I also associate it with places like National and State parks.

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GitPushItRealGood@reddit

It’s referenced in Reservoir Dogs for the drug dog story, and I often wonder if that sailed over many heads.

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Appropriate-Neck-585@reddit

SoCal checking in, definitely the Los Angeles school district had em in my day.

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crackedtooth163@reddit

Had it in jhs

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RickiSpanish5@reddit

Omg! The worst!

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ce402@reddit

We used it in the shop, boraxo. Was great for getting grease and grime and the top layer of skin off your hands.

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Outlaw11bINF@reddit

Yup there are some things you never forget this soap, those cardboard paper towels, and the saw dust they sprinkled on puke.

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CatsEqualLife@reddit

I will be the lone dissenter, I guess, because I liked the powdered soap. It always felt cleaner to me.

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FI-Engineer@reddit

The pain lets you know it’s WORKING.

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joshuastar@reddit

agreed, it feels like it’s actually doing something

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johnnybok@reddit

I also still prefer it, especially after working on my jeep

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NeptuneAndCherry@reddit (OP)

Yeah it's like powdered Lava soap 🥲😂

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jw071@reddit

That was pretty much just borax. At least it was my school. 20 Mule Team

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Solid-Hedgehog9623@reddit

Nah, we had the pink liquid. We did have the ‘paper bag-esque’ paper towels though.

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Enneagram_9@reddit

And it tickled so I didn't scrub as much as I should have.

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Euphoric-Proposal-42@reddit

I didn’t, and it doesn’t sound like I missed anything 😂😂😂

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bitsy88@reddit

We had bar soap in elementary school that everyone shared. I thought middle school was fancy because there was the powdered soap dispenser 😂

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PlatypusFreckles@reddit

I loved it so much, the texture was so fun 😍

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Roscoe_P_Trolltrain@reddit

It was pink! It was awful.

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ODB247@reddit

I remember the one that had a bar of soap init and you turned the crank to shave off flakes inti your hands. I remember the cardboard soap too.

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Scared_Wall_504@reddit

( 1975, just sayin ) Yeah the last I saw of that was about 1990.

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AriaStarstone@reddit

I hated that soap so much and yet was endlessly fascinated by it.

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Boozy_Cat_@reddit

There’s a restaurant in Chicago, Quartino, they have it in the bathrooms. Or did last couple times I was there.

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birdlawspecialist2@reddit

That nasty soap had the texture of sand. And never any paper towels in the restroom. A couple of the reasons I always tried to avoid the bathrooms in elementary school.

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rubybean5050@reddit

I loved it!! I’ve been chasing that smell in every bathroom I go to since. My kids always see me smelling the soap from the dispensers. It just seemed sooooo clean!!! And looked like bubble gum!!

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melanthius@reddit

Once it started getting wet, you had a little goopy sand castle monster forming and then all bets were off as to whether it would work or not

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BlackPhoenix1981@reddit

The last I remember I used it as recently as 2011 when I worked at a factory in the southwest. Great factory, decent pay but holy crap!! The amenities were from the early '90s. My wash station was a pig trough style with those bump underneath type of soap dispensers that brought out the powder.

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rhoswhen@reddit

No I never had this but I want to say I unabashedly love that cherry almond pink soap smell.

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clayton-bigs-B@reddit

Yo, how about the powdered milk when they ran out?!?

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SoloMotorcycleRider@reddit

/barf

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a-crimson-tree@reddit

Never had the powdered soap but I definitely remember the advent of cherry almond. I can still conjure the smell from memory.

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paco64@reddit

I loved it! It felt so good exfoliating my hands.

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SeasonPositive6771@reddit

It still exists.

I went to a retro diner that had it (It cuts down on weight and shipping, and apparently they find it easier to clean the bathroom).

I love powdered soap, but it can really dry your hands out.

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Frosty_Cloud_2888@reddit

Remember those giant Pixie stixs in the plastic tube? We emptied a couple of those out and use some notebook paper as a funnel to fill them up and handed them out.

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TantorDaDestructor@reddit

My middle school got rid of it when we started making a paste out of it and smeared obscene messages all over the restrooms and locker rooms- honestly some of the kids showed some artistic talent with what they could do with the medium. The janitors did not agree

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