How Is SoaPen Doing Today After Its 'Shark Tank' Experience?

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we learned a hard truth (well, many hard truths). But one difficult lesson was that people don't actually wash their hands for the recommended 20 seconds. And if you want to teach good hygiene habits, it's better to start young, which is why the company SoaPen is working to make handwashing a lot more fun.

Ahead of SoaPen's debut on the Oct. 29 episode of Shark Tank, let's take a look at where the company is now. Here's a post-Shark Tank update on SoaPen.

Back in 2015, SoaPen was one of two winners in UNICEF's Wearables for Good Challenge, which offered $15,000 plus mentoring to help bring the products to market in the developing world. Out of over 250 submissions across 46 countries, SoaPen was deemed to be a wearable for good.

Though founders Amanat Anand and Shubham Issar both grew up in New Delhi, India, they met when they began attending the Parsons School of Design in New York. Upon graduation, they launched SoaPen, a company meant to make washing your hands so fun, every child (and maybe adult) will want to do it.

At the time that they won the Wearables for Good Challenge, their product was a cylindrical bar of soap wrapped in a cardboard casing and worn on the wrist. The soap could be used as exactly that, but it could also be used as a crayon. A caregiver could draw on a child's hand, and then the child could wash it off, getting their hands squeaky clean.

By the time that Amanat and Shubham took their product to Shark Tank, SoaPen looked much different. Instead of a bar of soap, the SoaPen of today is actually a pen. Kids can simply remove the cap, draw all over their hands, and then scrub them clean to start a new creation when they're ready. But the pen also offers a gift to parents and caregivers everywhere — if the design is still on their hands, you know they didn't scrub hard enough, so send them back to the sink!

But the success of SoaPen has allowed the company to start developing new products. Today, they also offer Kid-Friendly Hand Sanitizer Gel. Many regular hand sanitizers on the market are too tough for children's skin, which is why this hand sanitizer uses Vitamin E to moisturize while it cleans.

SoaPen is also focused on giving back. For every three SoaPens sold, one is donated to a low-income community in India, the founders' home country.

To learn more about SoaPen's mission, catch the founders on Shark Tank on Oct. 29 at 8 p.m. EST on ABC.