Wett Giggles' soapy menagerie is perfect for keeping tiny hands clean

As we enter into fall, children and germs will converge at schools and day cares across the city, bringing home all sorts of ugly colds and flus. We know that vigilant hand-washing goes a long way to reduce the frequency of illness, so there's no time like the present to get kids excited about washing their hands. Cute and sweet-smelling, Wett Giggles scented soap bars may be just the thing to do it.

Wett Giggles was created in 2006 by New York-based mom Karen St. Clair in order to teach proper hygiene to her puddle-jumping son. The collection features a brood of nine colorful plastic critters, each surrounded by a bar of scented glycerin soap.

St. Clair named her Wett Giggles gang after Shakespearean characters, and uses a combination of essential and fragrance oils to scent them. The cast includes such players as blackberry-scented Beatrice the cow, grape-scented Cato the hippo, watermelon-scented Horatio the frog, and the orange-scented ducky, Juliet. Ophelia is a lemon-scented ducky with shea butter added for extra moisturizing. All but Juliet and Horatio have brushes for getting the grime out from underneath grubby nails.

Despite a rise in the price of her raw materials and a dip in the economy, St. Clair is determined to keep her soap critters afloat. "Every time I hear a child say how much they love their Wett Giggles soap, it keeps me going."

All of the plastic characters in the Wett Giggles product line are considered safe by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, so they're fine for little ones to use.

Wett Giggles soap bars retail for $10 for characters with the brush, $8 for characters without the brush, and $5 for the toy alone; all come with a complimentary soap dish. Order now at www.wettgiggles.com to receive 20 percent off your order.

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