Four years after the toilet paper shortage of 2020, bidet converts say they’re never going back
While the toilet paper shortages that hit the United States during pandemic lockdowns in the spring of 2020 ultimately eased up, they’ve had a lasting impact on one industry: the bidet business.
“The industry here in the U.S. just blew up. You couldn’t get a bidet if you wanted to,” says James Lin, founder of BidetKing.com, an online marketplace for all varieties of the bathroom appliance. “We all sold out. … There was a huge scramble to get more.”
All these comments are amusing for me as an asian
🙋♂️ - count me in that camp. I feel like a peasant if I have to shit on anything else. Splurge for the heated seat and heated water if you can afford it and prepare to be spoiled.
In some countries we use a bidet ‘wand’ which is like a small handheld sprayer connected to the sink. No need for heating the seat or waiting for some computer to squirt water at me. It’s clean, efficient. I use a small amount of toilet paper to dry the area/confirm cleanliness. 🙈
I got a bidet, unrelated to COVID and I never want to go back. ~~~~
Cold Bum Gun Crew, representin’
It took me using my friend’s bidet just once to convert. I ordered one that night, from BidetKing. Now I really hate using the toilet in public.
I told my partner that if the pan wasn’t gonna make us USA folks switch to bidets, nothing will. We suck. Lemme smash shit all over my asshole and pretend it’s clean.
If that’s your technique no wonder you need a bidet lmao
I don’t have a bidet but toilet paper is objectively insufficient. As an illustration consider your response if you spilled peanut butter on the carpet. Are you reaching for a dry paper towel?
Your skin is not a carpet. You could remove toilet paper from, for example, a granite countertop with a dry paper towel. If you also regularly sponge down your kitchen surfaces it works perfectly well.
A granite countertop does not have hair.
Bum gun is superior to bidet. Change my mind.
I’ve had a bidet for years, before covid even. It really is a game changer. You’d be surprised how much more clean you feel.
They have relatively cheap and easy to install ones that just go under your toilet seat and connect to the toilet’s water supply. That’s what I use.
We had ours during the pandemic. While my friends and coworkers griped about toilet paper shortages, it was like having a hidden superpower.
Is it not chilly as fuck during the winter, when tap water is like 4°c?
The little bit of water needed is usually already in the house and relatively heated by ambient warming. Its enough.
It’s a dollar more to install the ones onto the hot and cold taps, then you can set and forget the temp of the water, so it’s always the right temp.
And obviously they have the tech on-demand heated ones, but you can buy the sprayer and taps version for 15 bucks with stainless steel parts.
I’m lazy so I use the kind you can screw directly into the sink tap itself, find the right temp in the regular sink faucet handle, set and forget.
30 second installation, adjustable water temp, switch adjustable nozzle to use bidet or sink faucet, easy.
Probably why my mother-in-law doesn’t have a bidet, no hot water. Yes, I offered to buy her a water heater and pay for it to be installed she turned it down
That would make it tough in colder climates, but still worth it for 6 months out of the year, in my opinion.
It’s just such an obvious equation to me now haha, like do you want to touch any of that?
No, I don’t want to touch any of that and I want to be perfectly clean.
Okay then there’s this option that saves on toilet paper, feels better for your skin and is far more hygienic.
There’s just no comparison, although I perfectly understand how conservative and resistant to change people can be.
I worked with some old folks once and there was this old man who refused to buy a mouse for his laptop cuz he was like look this is the trackpad. I don’t need a mouse, that’s just newfangled b*******.
She lives in a part of the world where you can die from the heat 12 months of the year.
Whatever, I tried. Pretty much every year I can get her to accept at most one improvement to her situation. Last year I got her to let me and some workers I hired to clean up her backyard. So at least she some nice plants to look at instead of a motorcycle parts graveyard.
Help me understand. You spray your butthole to clean it. Your butt is now wet. How do you dry yourself?
You accidentally place your hand in poop. You wipe it with dry paper until it doesn’t smear any more. Why does that count as clean for your butt and not your hand?
Truly the headline we all needed.
That being said, yes, use a bidet!
