How to Take Good Care of Your Pump Dispenser

It is really frustrated when you reach for a hand soap dispenser and nothing comes out while your hands are covered by oil, makeup, or dirty things. This situation might drive people to nut since we need to find another way to get the soap out of the bottle with our dirty hands.

The good news is, before you decide to go for other pumps, you can try some soap dispenser repair tricks to get your soap back in no time, and you don’t need to botherselecting and purchasing an extra pump.

When the pump stops working, the pump is usually just clogged other than defective.

Clogged

Tip one: 

Remove the pump from the bottle, and soak the entire pump with the tube into warm water. After that, pump warm water through several times to get all the old stuff out of the pump and tube, then you can get a pump back to life. 

If doing the above step right away can not fix the pump, go ahead and soak the pump into warm or hot water 10-15 minutes or overnight. And then try again the next day to get all the excess and dried soap or lotion cleared out of the pump, you will end up getting your pump start functioning as usual.

Tip two: 

Sometimes, the pump fails to bring the soap out because of the thickness of the soap. To save your energy, you can dilute your soap with a bit of water to breaking down the concentration of the soap. (If you want to dilute your lotion, check with your lotion manufacture before you add watery liquid to it.)

There is another situation that some pumps are only designed for their own brand soap, like MUJI, and not suitable for alcohol, petrol or solvent-based products of any kind, high viscosity liquid, etc., therefore, you should read carefully the product listing page or seek help from customer service before adding your pumps to cart.

Besides clogged, there are other tips you may need to know to clean and care for your soap dispenser.

Clean for Rust

If you are using stainless steel pump, you may find rust would occur after a period of time. The main reason is the finished coat has worn and the raw material is exposed to air and moisture thus the pumped fluid and exposed metal surfaces results in rust.

To get rid of the rust, you will need to wet the pump with warm water and spray some exclusive cleanser onto a non-abrasive cloth or sponge to rub the rust stain and dried soap out. After that, rinse the cleanser from the pump thoroughly by using warm water and use a soft towel to dry the pump. Or, if you don’t have an exclusive cleanser, you can just use white vinegar instead.

The least important step, however, is to rub some beeswax or Vaseline around the pump and tip of the exit for further protection. Beeswax is usually used as a crucial coating of stainless steel which can protect the pump from rusting and water scaling.

Care for Long-term Use

As for maintenance, you should keep your pump free of highly concentrated soap or conditioner if you want to extend its service life.

Another essential thing you need to bear in mind is that you should wipe the excess soap or other product with standing water out from the pump regularly as they would wear down and ruin the metal eventually.

However, if none of the above tricks help to save your pump's life, it’s probably the spring inside the pump is broken. If this happens, it could be easier to get a new soap pump other than trying to rescue it.

Having illustrated the potential problems that a pump may encounter in its life, you can salvage your soap pump dispenser with a little effort if the dispenser is in danger.