Review: Bellari Liquid Dispenser

Verdict: 1 out of 5 stars.


After looking at soap dispensers from several different outlets, we finally picked the Bellari Liquid Dispenser - available at the Bellari Shop along Jln Besar Road.



The Bellari Dispenser looked elegant and well-built. The dispensing mechanism -- without any liquid soap in the unit - seemed to work well.

Without hesitation, we immediately bought 2 units.

That was a silly mistake! Never assume a product will work well without actual home use i.e. filled to the brim with liquid soap. Merely testing the mechanical spring action of the dispenser unit at the shop was useless. We should have negotiated with the Bellari sales staff, both of whom were nice people, that we would return the product for a cash refund if it didn't work or meet our expectation after installing the dispenser in our kitchen sink.

Back home, we installed one unit on the kitchen sink; we will install the other unit on the wash basin if the kitchen sink unit worked well.

Bellari Liquid Dispenser Model DS01, S$39 from The Bellari Shop

We filled the unit to the brim with WASH! PLUS dish-washing liquid bought from Sheng Shiong.

Well, the Bellari product seemed to work well for about 10 days. However, after that period of time, as days passed by, we found the dispenser increasingly failed to squirt out the dish-washing liquid.

We tried various liquid soap dilutions: undiluted, 50% strength, even 20% strength i.e. 1 part liquid soap mixed with 4 parts water.

Despite using 25% strength, the Bellari Liquid Dispenser wasn't able to expel the diluted liquid soap satisfactorily.

We went back to the shop. The sales staff allowed us to exchange the dispensing mechanism with one that was stiffer and therefore, needed to be pressed harder.

Back home, we put the new dispenser head to the test.

This time the dispenser continued to dispense the diluted soap liquid - for about 3 weeks. After that period, we couldn't coax the unit to dispense liquid soap to our satisfaction.

Finally, we simply gave up.

The Bellari Dispenser now sits empty, unused and unloved.

We placed the dishwasher liquid - diluted 50% - in a plastic bowl next to the kitchen sink. That will have to serve as our dish washing dispenser for now.

Verdict: 1 out of 5 stars.
We won't buy this product again. Nor would we buy Bellari products in future.

However, we hadn't found a more beautiful dispenser than the Bellari dispenser, and we won't discount the fact Bellari may yet come up with an excellent performing product in future. But they must prove to us the product really works and has been tested and certified by a reputable independent lab before we would commit our $$ to buy again!

ADDENDUM: We usually look for and rely on consumers' opinions and reviews before we buy a specific product. However, for products like soap dispensers and similar items, such reviews are hard to come by, because the particular brand or product item may not be widely known or marketed.

In such cases, where reviews are not available, we usually fall back on the brand's reputation as a safeguard. Thus, despite there being no review, we relied on the TOTO brand in our purchase purchase of the TOTO Toilet Bowl. And the TOTO Toilet Bowl did not disappoint us.

Bellari was a brand that was not known to us. We were told Bellari is a local company, and the Bellari Soap Dispenser was designed and made by the company. As the product design was good and the body appeared robustly made, we went ahead with the purchase. We knew we were buying at our own risk.

Actually, we should have been alerted when the sales staff gave us a replacement head that she said was a newer design, with more powerful dispensing spring. Bellari would not need to come out with a new and stronger spring mechanism, unless customers had complained about the product. Apparently, the company went ahead to market the product before it had conducted extensive testing on the spring dispensing mechanism in actual home use.

Moral of the story is, if you have to buy a particular product where no consumer opinion or review is available, go for well-established and widely known brands that have already established a reputation for quality products.