February 1, 2012
Four Chamber Shower Dispenser
Unfortunately, the four chamber dispenser is no longer available on Amazon.com. A three chamber version is available though.
Long ago up north we had a shower dispenser that was mounted on the wall in our shower. It had little rubber bulbs that were squashed by pressing a button to dispense some liquid out the bottom. The idea was that you had one neat device mounted to the wall to replace four bottles on some sort of a shelf in the shower stall. It was a great idea, but not very well executed. The rubber bulbs tended to crack and then not work at all, and even when they were "working" they didn't dispense very consistantly.
When my wife said she wanted a four compartment dispenser for our shower
here in Florida I was skeptical, but went online to see what I could find.
What I found was
Better Living Products Clear Choice Dispenser IV Four Chamber Shower Dispenser, White
Here it is, mounted on the tile wall of our shower:
I bought it, and after over a month of use with it mounted on the wall in our shower I remain impressed with its quality construction. Even better, it actually works.
In the reviews on Amazon one of the complaints is that it doesn't work with "thick" shampoos or conditioners. When my wife filled it, two of the compartments worked fine, but she complained to me that the two thick ones didn't work. I followed the pump priming instructions printed on the bottom of the cover you remove to fill the compartments. Since I primed the pumps all four compartments of the dispenser have dispensed consistantly with each push of the button.
The walls of my shower are ceramic tile, which means I needed to glue the dispenser to the wall rather than mounting it with screws. I was concerned that the gluing process might be complicated and then not stick very well. So I was pleased with the way it went. First, the wall needs to be clean. To clean it you need to wash it to get any soap film or oils off the wall. Then give it a wipe with rubbing alcohol to get an extra insurance that the wall is clean.
The package includes silicone glue to firmly fasten the mounting bracket to the wall and four squares of double stick tape to hold the bracket in place for the 24 hours it takes for the silicone to fully cure. My initial concern for using silicone to mount the dispenser was how do you hold it in place on the wall while the silicone takes several hours to get hard enough to hold the dispenser on the wall by itself? The double stick tape solves this problem nicely. It's plenty strong enough to hold the bracket on the wall while the silicone cures, even though it would never hold the dispenser on the wall by itself for very long.
Here is the bracket glued to the tile wall of my shower:
It's been mounted on the wall now for over a month. I lifted the dispenser out of the bracket to take the picture.
This shows the back of the dispenser. It's out of the bracket
that mounts it to the wall. This view shows the piston pumps that
dispense the same amount of product every time you push the button on
the front.
Better Living Products Clear Choice Dispenser IV Four Chamber Shower Dispenser, White