Foam Sweet Foam

Like a lot of five-and-three-quarter-year-olds, my daughter Grace has a favorite restaurant. And much to my delight, it's not one that features plastic toys with the kid's meal or a rain shower replete with thunder and lightning every fifteen minutes. My daughter's patronage is not wooed by toys or ambiance, but with something clean and simple — soap.

Forget that this Italian eatery has delicious food, a boisterous family-friendly atmosphere, and tables covered in white paper set with crayons — the highlight for Grace is a trip to the ladies' room where she can wash her hands with foamy blue soap. Our dining ritual consists of at least three bathroom visits, so I always seat Grace and myself on the ends where we can easily get in and out when nature (or soap) calls.

"Mama, wouldn't it be cool if we could have soap like this at home?" she asked as she dried her hands during our last visit. I reminded her that we do have foam soap at home and asked what made this soap so special.

"This is blue and it smells like a little flower and makes my skin soft," she replied. The girl had a point — I could never find foamy soap in anything but white, most have strong perfumed smells, and they can be drying.

But then I found a way to satisfy Grace's foam fixation at home by adding coloring to our favorite store-bought soap. (We like Dr. Bronner's lavender-scented liquid soap. It's gentle and thin enough to work as a refill in foam soap dispensers.) I add a few drops of blue food coloring and voilá — fancy restaurant soap for pennies a pump.

"But when do we get the thing that hangs on the wall and squirts the foam out?" Grace asked me the other day.

"Honey, those are for very special places —like public restrooms," I explained.