Don't look now, but a restroom renaissance is revitalizing America's public bathrooms. As fast as you can say "electric eye," public commodes have become touchless frontiers, chock full of products that make life cleaner, easier and more efficient. From automatic lavatories and soap dispensers to motion-sensing towel machines, today's restrooms are more user-friendly — and sanitary — than ever before.

As technology goes, so goes America.

So to speak. Last month Georgia-Pacific introduced a restroom product called Safe-T-Gard, a hankie-dispenser/trash bin to mount near restroom doors. The idea: Use the hankie to grasp the doorknob so you don't re-infect the hands you just washed.

And have you used the facilities at a Missouri highway rest stop lately? Then you've experienced the 21st-century, all-in-one hand washing and drying experience of the Wallgate CME Classic lavatory.

No more germy knobs, faucets, levers or buttons. Just stick in your mitts and let the touchless sink do the rest. Soap drops automatically on your hands, followed closely by warm water. Finally, the same unit that just washed your hands dries them with warm air.

"My wife calls it a car wash for your hands," said Dan Wheeler, the St. Louis distributor for the British product.

Wheeler fell in love with the unit after he and his wife encountered them in a McDonald's in London. When he returned home he became the company's U.S. distributor.

Today there are about 700 units in the country. Wheeler's first big sale was to the Missouri Department of Transportation.

Then there's the 800-pound gorilla of restroom innovations, the motion-activated touchless towel dispenser. Introduced several years ago, the units are popping up everywhere. Dan Silk is vice president of marketing for Georgia-Pacific, the country's largest manufacturer.

While Silk won't say how many have been sold since the company's first touchless dispenser was introduced in 2002, sales increased 350 percent the first year after introduction.

"With the amount of dispensers that have been placed around the U.S., we could wash more than 10 billion sets of hands in one year," he said.

The advantage of touchless technology: fewer contaminated hands mean fewer employees missing work. Georgia-Pacific commissioned a study in the late '90s that found that the highest collection of germs in a washroom was not on toilets but on buttons, cranks and levers on towel dispensers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says touching a germy object is the No. 1 source of spreading disease. Barry Michaels, senior microbiologist for Georgia-Pacific, figured hand-washing-related infections cost American businesses more than $8 billion per year.

One restroom advancement that does touch the hands is soap. We've gone from bar soap to scratchy soap granules to squirts of liquid soap. The latest innovation?

Foamy soap.

Focus group participants report liking soap that is soft and pre-lathered, said a spokesman for GOJO, one manufacturer of foamy soaps. It spreads easily and feels luxurious. Makers plan on it being around a long time.

"It's not just a fad," reads a GOJO promotion. "It's the future."

Touchless technology is the future, too. But it's by no means perfect. Original touchless faucets have developed problems. Some quit working when the small infrared sensor failed because of soap scum, vandalism, inability to recognize dark skin pigments or interference from other automated products, such as automatic-flushing toilets.

Additionally, replacing batteries for heavily used touchless lavatory systems could run more than $1,000 per year, per unit.

The Bradley Corp. of Menomonee Falls, Wis., aims to eliminate those problems. The company's new touchless lavatories feature an omnidirectional detection zone that the company says is tamper-proof and far more reliable.

"It really cuts down on user frustration," said Bradley spokeswoman Kriste Goldsmith. "You've seen people clapping their hands under the touchless faucet or waving their hand back and forth trying to get some water? This eliminates that."

Other changes in modern public restrooms are more subtle.

Some towns have passed ordinances mandating more than one hand-drying method in public restrooms, said World Dryer Corp. account manager Cathy Sibley. The company's response: the Everydry, a paper towel dispenser, hand dryer and waste receptacle in one. Look for them by the end of this year.

World Dryer also is introducing a new machine, the 12,000 rpm AirMax, that dries hands in 15 seconds, twice as fast as current 7,500 rpm models. The air moves so fast, you can see your skin move. The downside: at 83 decibels, it's 14 percent louder. The AirMax is being installed where speed is important but sound is not — airports, train stations, amusement parks and stadiums.