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Toilet paper (sometimes called toilet/ bath/ bathroom tissue, or toilet roll) is a tissue paper product primarily used to clean the human anus and surrounding region of Human feces (after defecation), and to clean the external genitalia and perineum of urine (after urination).
It is commonly supplied as a long strip of perforated paper wrapped around a cylindrical paperboard core, for storage in a dispenser within arm's reach of a toilet. The bundle, or roll of toilet paper, is specifically known as a toilet roll, loo roll, or bog roll (in British English).
There are other uses for toilet paper, as it is a readily available household product. It can be used for blowing the nose or wiping the eyes (or other uses of facial tissue). It can be used to wipe off sweat or absorb it. Some people may use the paper to absorb the bloody discharge that comes out of the vagina during menstruation. Toilet paper can be used in cleaning (like a less abrasive paper towel). As a teenage prank, "toilet papering" is a form of temporary vandalism.
Most modern toilet paper in the developed world is designed to decompose in , whereas some other bathroom and are not. Wet toilet paper rapidly decomposes in the environment. Toilet paper comes in various numbers of plies (layers of thickness), from one- to six-ply, with more back-to-back plies providing greater strength and absorbency. Most modern domestic toilet paper is white, and embossed with a pattern, which increases the surface area of the paper, and thus, its effectiveness at removing waste. Some people have a preference for whether the orientation of the roll on a dispenser should be over or under.
The use of paper for hygiene has been recorded in China in the 6th century AD, with specifically manufactured toilet paper being mass-produced in the 14th century. Modern commercial toilet paper originated in the 19th century, with a patent for roll-based dispensers being made in 1883.
During the later Tang dynasty (618–907 AD), an Arab traveller to China in the year 851 AD remarked:
During the early 14th century, it was recorded that in what is now Zhejiang alone, ten million packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets of toilet paper were manufactured annually. During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 AD), it was recorded in 1393 that an annual supply of 720,000 sheets of toilet paper (approximately ) were produced for the general use of the imperial court at the capital of Nanjing. From the records of the Imperial Bureau of Supplies of that same year, it was also recorded that for the Hongwu Emperor's imperial family alone, there were 15,000 sheets of special soft-fabric toilet paper made, and each sheet of toilet paper was perfumed.
Elsewhere, wealthy people wiped themselves with wool, lace or hemp, while less wealthy people used their hand when defecating into rivers, or cleaned themselves with various materials such as rags, wood shavings, leaf, grass, hay, stones, Ostracon, sand, moss, water, snow, , husk, fruit skins, Exoskeleton, or , depending upon the country and weather conditions or social customs. In Ancient Rome, a xylospongium was commonly used, and, after use, placed back in a pail of vinegar. Several talmudic sources indicating ancient Jewish practice refer to the use of small pebbles, often carried in a special bag, and also to the use of dry grass and of the smooth edges of broken pottery jugs (e.g., Shabbat 81a, 82a, Yevamot 59b). These are all cited in the classic Biblical and Talmudic Medicine by the German physician Julius Preuss (Eng. trans. Sanhedrin Press, 1978).
The 16th-century French satirical writer François Rabelais, in Chapter XIII of Book 1 of his novel sequence Gargantua and Pantagruel, has his character Gargantua investigate a great number of ways of cleansing oneself after defecating. Gargantua dismisses the use of paper as ineffective, rhyming that: "Who his foul tail with paper wipes, Shall at his Bollocks leave some chips." (Sir Thomas Urquhart's 1653 English translation). He concludes that "the neck of a goose, that is well downed" provides an optimum cleansing medium.
The rise of publishing by the eighteenth century led to the use of newspapers and cheap editions of popular books for cleansing. Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to his son in 1747, told of a man who purchased
In many parts of the world, especially where toilet paper or the necessary plumbing for disposal may be unavailable or unaffordable, toilet paper is not used. Also, in many parts of the world people consider using water a much cleaner and more sanitary practice than using paper. Anal cleansing is then performed with other methods or materials, such as water, for example using a bidet, a lota, Cloth, sand, leaves (including seaweed), , animal furs, sticks or hands; afterwards, hands are washed with water and possibly soap.
Seth Wheeler of Albany, New York, obtained the earliest United States patents for toilet paper and dispensers, the types of which eventually were in common use in that country, in 1883.The first of note is for the idea of perforating commercial papers (25 July 1871, #117355), the application for which includes an illustration of a perforated roll of paper. On 13 February 1883 he was granted patent #272369, which presented a roll of perforated wrapping or toilet paper supported in the center with a tube. Wheeler also had patents for mounted brackets that held the rolls. See also Joseph Nathan Kane, "Famous First Facts: A Record of First Happenings, Discoveries and Inventions in the United States" (H. W. Wilson: 1964), p. 434; Harper's Magazine, volume. Q, 1941–1943 (Harper's Magazine Co.:1941), p. 181; Jules Heller, "Paper Making" (Watson-Guptill:1978), p. 193. Toilet paper dispensed from rolls was popularized when the Scott Paper Company began marketing it in 1890. Toilet paper takes center stage amid coronavirus outbreak. Be thankful we no longer use corncobs and rope ends.
The manufacturing of this product had a long period of refinement, considering that as late as the 1930s, a selling point of the Northern Tissue company was that their toilet paper was "splinter free". The widespread adoption of the flush toilet increased the use of toilet paper, as heavier paper was more prone to clogging the trap that prevents sewer gases from escaping through the toilet. Our only good news: Toilet paper won't run out / How Americans fell for toilet paper.
Softer, two ply toilet roll was introduced in Britain in 1942, by St Andrew Mills in Walthamstow; this became the famous Andrex.
Moist toilet paper, called wet wipes, was first introduced in the United Kingdom by Andrex in the 1990s. It has been promoted as being a better method of cleaning than dry toilet paper after defecation, and may be useful for women during menstruation. It was promoted as a flushable product but it has been implicated in the creation of ; by 2016 some municipalities had begun education campaigns advising people not to flush used wet wipes.
More than seven billion rolls of toilet paper are sold yearly in the United States where an average of 23.6 rolls per capita per year is used. "Mr. Whipple Left It Out: Soft Is Rough on Forests" by Leslie Kaufman, The New York Times, 25 February 2009. Retrieved 26 February 2009.
In 1973, Johnny Carson joked in his Tonight Show monologue about comments made by Wisconsin congressman Harold V. Froehlich about the possibility of a toilet paper shortage. Subsequently, consumers purchased abnormal amounts, causing an actual shortage in the United States for several months.
Toilet paper has been one of the commodities subject to shortages in Venezuela starting in the 2010s; the government seized one toilet paper factory in an effort to resolve the problem.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, toilet paper shortages were reported in March 2020 in multiple countries due to hoarding and panic buying. At first, few believed the pandemic would be serious. Later, people realized they might need to stock up on certain items in case of a shelter-in-place order, or in case they did not know how long such an order would last; suppliers could not assure that they could keep up with demand. However, manufacturers continued to produce even more than they had before. Demand was higher for the types of toilet paper used at home. In some countries the bidet was already seen as a solution, and a survey before the pandemic had indicated an increasing number of Americans would be interested. Amid the panic buying during the pandemic, the Australian toilet paper brand Quilton donated a million of toilet paper rolls to vulnerable Australians who were struggling due to the shortages of toilet paper.
Toilet paper products vary greatly in the distinguishing technical factors, such as size, weight, roughness, softness, chemical residues, "finger-breakthrough" resistance, water-absorption, etc. The larger companies have very detailed, scientific market surveys to determine which marketing sectors require or demand which of the many technical qualities. Modern toilet paper may have a light coating of aloe or lotion or wax worked into the paper to reduce roughness.
Quality is usually determined by the number of plies (stacked sheets), coarseness, and durability. Low grade institutional toilet paper is typically of the lowest grade of paper, has only one or two plies, is very coarse and sometimes contains small amounts of embedded unbleached/unpulped paper; it was typically called "hard" toilet paper. A brand disinfected with carbolic acid was manufactured in Sheffield, United Kingdom under the Izal brand name by Newton Chambers until 1981. Mid-grade two ply is somewhat textured to provide some softness and is somewhat stronger. Premium toilet paper may have lotion and wax and has two to four plies of very finely pulped paper. If it is marketed as "luxury", it may be quilted or rippled (embossed), perfumed, colored or patterned, medicated (with anti-bacterial chemicals), or treated with aloe or other perfumes.
To advance decomposition of the paper in or drainage, the paper used has shorter fibres than facial tissue or writing paper. The manufacturer tries to reach an optimal balance between rapid decomposition (which requires shorter fibres) and sturdiness (which requires longer fibres). Compaction of toilet paper in drain lines, such as in a clog, prevents fibre dispersion and largely halts the breakdown process.
A German quip says that the toilet paper of Nazi Germany was so rough and scratchy that it was almost unusable, so many people used old issues of the Völkischer Beobachter instead, because the paper was softer.Read, Anthony and Fisher, David The Fall of Berlin London: Pimlico, 1993.
Colored toilet paper remains commonly available in some European countries. Here in solid color toilet paper base, apart from the natural tones between white and gray or beige, pastel shades prevail: pink, apricot, light yellow and light blue. In rare cases, pale purple or pale green can be found. However, rich colors are rarely used, such as black, wine red, neon green, royal blue. Flat printed toilet paper is uncommon. If there is printing, it is often one color. Common print colors are pink and pinkish red, also blue, more rarely purple, orange, brown or green.
Toilet papers are also provided with texts (jokes, poems), joke motifs (banknotes, politicians in their own or neighbouring companies) or advertising imprints.
Some commercial or institutional toilet paper is wrapped around a cylinder to many times the thickness of a standard toilet paper roll.
Children and cats may unroll an entire roll of toilet paper by spinning it until it completely unravels on the floor, or as a game by children wadding up one end, putting it in the toilet bowl without tearing it and then using the flushing of the toilet to pull new paper into the toilet, with the objective of flushing the entire roll down the toilet section at a time without the toilet paper breaking. Special toilet paper insert holders with an oblong shape were invented to prevent continuous unrolling without tearing to discourage this practice.
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Other gags include custom toilet paper printed with jokes, stories or politician's images.
Toilet paper has been used in physics education to demonstrate the concepts of torque, moment of inertia, and angular momentum; and the conservation of momentum and energy.
More than seven billion rolls of toilet paper are sold yearly in the United States alone. Americans use an average of 141 rolls per capita a year which is equivalent to of tissue paper per year. This figure is about 50% more than the average of other Western countries or Japan. The higher use in the United States may be explained by the fact that other countries people use bidets or spray hoses to clean themselves. Millions of trees are logging in North and South America leaving ecological footprint concerns.
, between 22% and 48% of the toilet paper used in the United States comes from in the U.S. and South America, with the rest mostly coming from old, second growth forests, and, some from .
Toilet paper produced from bamboo is commercially available, and is in some ways more environmentally friendly than virgin pulpwood, because bamboo grows faster, taking less land and less water. For North American consumers, the Natural Resources Defense Council recommends recycled tree pulp over bamboo toilet paper, because tree forests promote more biodiversity and bamboo products must be shipped from Asia. Which toilet paper is the most eco-friendly? Bamboo vs. Recycled
Toilet paper produced from bagasse, a byproduct of sugarcane, is commercially available, and avoids cutting down any plants because sugarcane is already grown for sugar production.
The most environmentally friendly alternatives are to rely solely on soap and water for anal hygiene.
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