KOHLER Contemporary Design Soap/Lotion Dispenser in Vibrant Brushed Nickel

A design is the concept of or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word design refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something – its design. The verb to design expresses the process of developing a design. In some cases, the direct construction of an object without an explicit prior plan may also be considered to be a design (such as in arts and crafts). A design is expected to have a purpose within a specific context, typically aiming to satisfy certain goals and constraints while taking into account aesthetic, functional and experiential considerations. Traditional examples of designs include architectural and engineering drawings, circuit diagrams, sewing patterns, and less tangible artefacts such as business process models.

The term dispenser typically imply a machine or container which is designed to release a specific amount of its content, usually liquids or powders/fine granular materials.

In common usage, a dispenser may also refer to:

Lotion is a low-viscosity topical preparation intended for application to the skin. By contrast, creams and gels have higher viscosity, typically due to lower water content. Lotions are applied to external skin with bare hands, a brush, a clean cloth, or cotton wool.

While a lotion may be used as a medicine delivery system, many lotions, especially hand lotions and body lotions and lotion for allergies are meant instead to simply smooth, moisturize, soften and, sometimes, perfume the skin.

Nickel is a chemical element; it has symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive, but large pieces are slow to react with air under standard conditions because a passivation layer of nickel oxide forms on the surface that prevents further corrosion. Even so, pure native nickel is found in Earth's crust only in tiny amounts, usually in ultramafic rocks, and in the interiors of larger nickel–iron meteorites that were not exposed to oxygen when outside Earth's atmosphere.

Meteoric nickel is found in combination with iron, a reflection of the origin of those elements as major end products of supernova nucleosynthesis. An iron–nickel mixture is thought to compose Earth's outer and inner cores.

Use of nickel (as natural meteoric nickel–iron alloy) has been traced as far back as 3500 BCE. Nickel was first isolated and classified as an element in 1751 by Axel Fredrik Cronstedt, who initially mistook the ore for a copper mineral, in the cobalt mines of Los, Hälsingland, Sweden. The element's name comes from a mischievous sprite of German miner mythology, Nickel (similar to Old Nick). Nickel minerals can be green, like copper ores, and were known as kupfernickel – Nickel's copper – because they produced no copper.

Although most nickel in the earth's crust exists as oxides, economically more important nickel ores are sulfides, especially pentlandite. Major production sites include Sulawesi, Indonesia, the Sudbury region, Canada (which is thought to be of meteoric origin), New Caledonia in the Pacific, Western Australia, and Norilsk, Russia.

Nickel is one of four elements (the others are iron, cobalt, and gadolinium) that are ferromagnetic at about room temperature. Alnico permanent magnets based partly on nickel are of intermediate strength between iron-based permanent magnets and rare-earth magnets. The metal is used chiefly in alloys and corrosion-resistant plating.

About 68% of world production is used in stainless steel. A further 10% is used for nickel-based and copper-based alloys, 9% for plating, 7% for alloy steels, 3% in foundries, and 4% in other applications such as in rechargeable batteries, including those in electric vehicles (EVs). Nickel is widely used in coins, though nickel-plated objects sometimes provoke nickel allergy. As a compound, nickel has a number of niche chemical manufacturing uses, such as a catalyst for hydrogenation, cathodes for rechargeable batteries, pigments and metal surface treatments. Nickel is an essential nutrient for some microorganisms and plants that have enzymes with nickel as an active site.

Soap is a salt of a fatty acid (sometimes other carboxylic acids) used for cleaning and lubricating products as well as other applications. In a domestic setting, soaps, specifically "toilet soaps", are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are used as thickeners, components of some lubricants, emulsifiers, and catalysts.

Soaps are often produced by mixing fats and oils with a base. Humans have used soap for millennia; evidence exists for the production of soap-like materials in ancient Babylon around 2800 BC.