Toilet Paper - Let's Get Real!

You can’t get much more basic than toilet paper. That’s right; toilet paper. It serves a purpose and is a necessity of life for the most civilized among us. It was never intended to be considered décor, yet through the years we have run the gamut from solid colored to flowered toilet paper, color coordinating with bathroom furnishings. More recently we’ve been presented with choices such as aloe or lanolin treated toilet paper.

Well, I wasn’t impressed then and I’m not impressed now. Itchy allergies to colored paper will certainly leave an impression, though not the intended one, I’m sure. And, who really likes the icky feel of toilet paper soaked in lotion?

With gasoline prices climbing relentlessly, people are struggling to buy gas to get to work to put groceries on the table for the kids, and there, on the store shelves, is designer toilet paper: lotion treated, perfumed, quilted, single ply, double ply, soft as a baby’s skin and rough as a corn cob. Everything you might want, except a simple good quality, reasonably priced, white, unscented toilet paper.

I won’t even mention brand names. Every time I find a brand I like it seems like everyone else starts using it too and suddenly the manufacturer gets greedy - the price goes up and the quality goes down. In recent months I’ve noticed other subtle changes that I’m sure the manufacturers are hoping we, the people, won’t pick up on. Have you noticed the play on either end of your toilet paper on the holder? It used to be that the paper left just enough room on either end to roll easily. Now it is a quarter to half inch shorter, leaving your paper roll sliding back and forth on the roller. If they keep this up, we’ll soon be using adding machine paper.

So, just in case you are reading this article and you have any influence in toilet paper manufacturing, please consider the following guidelines for what consumers want:

We’d like it somewhere in the middle of sandpaper and pillows in softness. This is not M&M’s; nobody wants it to “melt in your hand”. To measure proper width, it should be easily used to blow one’s nose. When pricing, please keep in mind that it is flushed down the toilet. There is no return on your money, so cheaper is better. And, please, stop advertising toilet paper as recycled. Even if it is recycled, I promise you, we don’t want to know.