Forty years ago I bought a wall mounted soap dish holder - a decorative chrome and white porcelain base with a protruding white ring to hold a tempered glass soap dish above the bathroom sink. My intention was for my wife to use it for keeping her hair dryer out of the way, and despite the small diameter of the ring, it held her dryer like we intended. I was always a bit concerned that only 2" of the dryer nozzle protruded through the ring of the wall mount, but it never fell out, and back then I couldn't locate any wall mounts made for hair dryers. When we remodeled the bathroom, I discovered that now there were wall mounts designed for hair dryers, and in styles that better matched our new bathroom fixtures than my old improvised soap dish wall mount. And the new hair dryer my wife bought has a nozzle that is too large for the old wall mount. So I purchased this Moen unit, and installed it this morning. The Moen unit attaches in the same manner as the old unit - drill a couple holes, add some sheet rock anchor expanding receptacles, screw the base to the anchors, pop the wall holder over the base, secure the holder in place with a bottom mounted set screw. But the devil is in the details! The old unit came with plastic anchors that screwed directly into the sheet rock with a philips screw driver , no drilling required. The sides of the base were straight and square, so it was easy to use a bubble level to make sure it was true. The base used a steel tongue-and-groove system to make sure the decorative holder would not rattle around on the base mount, and was secured by a bottom mount set screw. And the decorative holder was thick metal that was chrome plated, with white porcelain fittings and heavy white enamel trim. All the decorative parts were thick, well rounded, and polished - nothing to scratch. The Moen unit comes with expanding nut wall anchors that require drilling to install. All 4 sides of the base mount are curved, so you can't use a bubble level to make sure the mount is true. The base is a cast pot metal fixture with a protrusion that slides into a loose fitting depression in the decorative holder, and is held (somewhat) tight solely by pressure from the bottom mount set screw. The decorative holder base is made of relatively thin metal, not really structural, merely a shroud concealing a cast metal core that supports everything on the wall mounted base. The ring that holds the dryer is lined with an adhesive backed grey rubbery sheet to help prevent scratches to the dryer. This sheet - at least on the unit I received, was applied such that there were ripples in the insert. Also, a sticky edge of the sheet protruded beyond the metal ring and needed trimming with an X-acto knife to keep the dryer from sticking. After assembly, with every screw tight in the wall mounts and on the base plate set screw, there was enough slop in the base-to-decorative cover mounting system that there is a very slight creaky noise and a tiny fraction of visual motion to the holder when inserting and removing the hair dryer. I could probably disassemble the mount and shim the base so the slop goes away, but the noise and motion are so slight that I will wait to see how well it holds up to daily use before I go back in to fix an indifferent design. This unit looks more modern than my old improvisation. However, it was not optimally designed or manufactured, in my opinion. The wall base plate curved sides make it more difficult to level, and the pot metal protrusion on the base is not a snug fit into the decorative shroud. And the glued-on rubber liner in the holder ring was poorly applied and needed trimming. Yes, this looks nice, will likely stay on the wall, and holds the new style large nozzle hair dryer. It is not, however, as well constructed and high quality as the 40 year old soap dish holder. After seeing the differences, I am keeping the old unit to give to one of my kids, who so far still use small diameter nozzle dryers. (The kind that cost $10-20, unlike the trendy new dryers costing a half a days pay!) If you have the smaller diameter nozzle dryers, Amazon has soap dish holders that should work for the hair dryer at half the price of the Moen. (Saw one reviewer using an "XVL Wall Mounted Stainless Steel Stainless Soap Holder, Brushed G502 - $16" as a holder for his Google wifi unit!)
