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Puff the Magic Dryer makes its debut
9th of May 2012
Hoping to launch a new high speed warm air hand dryer for children at the show this week is the Magic Dryer Company.
Owner-director Susan Coghill and her husband, children's hygiene consultant Iain Stewart, have spent four years developing a hand dryer which they claim is both fast enough and quiet enough to encourage children to wash and dry their hands effectively. It also has a jolly green dragon painted on the façade to make it even more attractive to the very young.
"When the first high speed hand dryers came out, our reaction was that they were great - but how were children going to use them?" said Coghill. "We have a seven-year-old daughter ourselves and she wouldn't go near a noisy high-speed dryer because she found them too threatening. Most hand dryers are also the wrong height for children.
"So we came up with Puff the Magic Dryer concept which operates at only 70 decibels compared with 85-95 decibels -- the industry standard for most high-speed hand dryers on the market. It is also smaller and more compact so it takes up less space on the wall and the dragon image makes it more appealing to children."
Children with autistic spectrum disorders - an estimated 133,500 in the UK alone according to the National Autistic Society - are among are particularly noise sensitive, said Stewart.
The Scotland-based company has been supplying hygiene products and services to schools and nurseries for seven years. Dudley Industries will be distributing the dryers in the UK and the company has also received interest from the US, Australia, Belgium and Italy.
The dryer is mounted on a backboard which provides hand hygiene tips for children and can be placed at different heights for the under-fives and over-fives. Magic Dryers are already in place in petting farms, nurseries and respite centres around the UK.
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