Soap dispenser sludge

Why is there always water all over the bathroom counter?! It seems to pool around the soap dispenser into a disgusting sludge. How does something that's supposed to clean things end up so gross? 

This pool of soap sludge around our soap dispenser happens because of how we wash our hands as a family. It's a sticky mess that can be harder to clean if I don't get to it right away and I don't want to discourage my kids from washing their hands. If we washed them like medical professionals scrub their hands this wouldn't happen. 

As a family we have talked about shaking out our hands in the sink before drying. We have talked about wiping down the counter after drying our hands. We have tried leaving a towel right next to the the soap dispenser as a reminder to clean up after washing. We have tried placing a wash cloth under the soap dispenser to catch all of the spilled water but the cloth gets saturated very quickly and doesn't catch all of the water what was spilled from hand washing. We have tried placing a hand towel under the soap dispenser and this worked a little better because it captured all of the water but it still ended up a big sopping mess. 

One day I was washing some dishes and placing them on the drying mat when it occurred to me that those mats are really good at absorbing the water without getting really gross quickly. This thought made me pause and ask myself "Why couldn't those serve the same purpose in the bathroom?"

 I bought some extra mats from the dollar tree and placed the whole mat under the soap dispenser and I watched to see what would happen. Sure enough it absorbed all the water and didn't get sticky like the washcloths or towels did. When I changed out the drying mats I could pick up the mat and it wouldn't drip water all over the place. I could easily clean where the mat was when I changed them out.

After living with this for a few months my husband asked if I could cut the mats down so that they were not hanging into the sink or over the edge of the counter. I looked at the edges of the mats and thought I could do the same stitch on my sewing machine. I cut them to fit the shape of the area they were supposed to absorb water and zig zag stitched up the edges. 

 

We are still working as a family on not dripping all over the bathroom counter but at least we know that everyone is  washing their hands and I am always happy about that.