#159 Over & Under

#159 Over & Under
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Do you prefer over? Or under? Over & under are both popular — but which is correct?

The cor­rect way to install toi­let paper is over, accord­ing to the patent draw­ing from 1891. (I like the lit­tle hands.)

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The history of toilet paper

This is an excerpt from a web­site devot­ed to the his­to­ry of toi­let paper (if you can believe that). Read the entire sto­ry at their website:

toi​let​pa​per​his​to​ry​.net

The first “offi­cial” toi­let paper was intro­duced in Chi­na in 1391, but the first men­tion of toi­let paper (paper for per­son­al hygiene) dates back to the year 589 AD in Korea. Between 875 & 1317 AD, paper was pro­duced in large sheets (2‑foot x 3‑foot sheets & even per­fumed) for Chi­nese emperor’s fam­i­ly hygiene.

In the Colo­nial Amer­i­ca, the com­mon means was corncobs.

Paper was a rare com­mod­i­ty until the 17th or 18th cen­turies. The first ref­er­ence to paper as toi­let paper was record­ed in 1718. After inven­tion of paper pages from news­pa­pers & mag­a­zines were also com­mon­ly used (news­pa­pers became wide­ly avail­able at 1700s.)

Joseph C. Gayet­ty invent­ed the first pack­aged toi­let paper in the Unit­ed States in 1857. “Gayetty’s Med­icat­ed Paper” was sold in pack­ages of flat sheets, med­icat­ed with aloe & water­marked with his name. Gayety’s toi­let paper was avail­able as late as the 1920’s.

In 1871, Seth Wheel­er (to some sources Zeth Wheel­er) of Albany became the offi­cial “inven­tor” of toi­let paper (on a roll). Seth Wheel­er patents rolled & per­fo­rat­ed wrap­ping paper.

Rolled & per­fo­rat­ed toi­let paper was invent­ed around 1880. In 1879, Thomas Sey­mour, Edward Irvin & Clarence Wood Scott found­ed the Scott Paper Com­pa­ny in Philadel­phia. Scott broth­ers came up with the idea of cus­tomiz­ing rolls for every merchant-​customer they had. They began sell­ing pack­ages of small rolls & stacked sheets. Scott Paper Com­pa­ny began pro­duc­ing toi­let paper under its own brand name in 1896. By 1925 Scott Com­pa­ny became the lead­ing toi­let paper com­pa­ny in the world.

This is just part of the sto­ry. It’s from a web­site ded­i­cat­ed sole­ly to the his­to­ry of toi­let paper! Read the full his­to­ry at toi​let​pa​per​his​to​ry​.net

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Still no toilet paper!

I just came back from the super­mar­ket (first time out in two weeks — I’m play­ing it safe) and was amazed to find the shelves still bare of toi­let paper & paper tow­els & hand san­i­tiz­er (& no split peas for my favorite soup using the East­er hambone).

Stores still out but I’m stocked up

While every­one else is won­der­ing if they’ll have to resort to news­pa­per & corn cobs, I have a stock­pile of toi­let paper & paper tow­els in my bath­room cab­i­net. Like a mini Cost­co. No, I did­n’t horde the shelves when the pan­dem­ic start­ed. It has to do with spec­tac­u­lar design & two shock­ing dis­cov­er­ies (one bad, one good). Read on…

I’ve been a loy­al con­sumer of Cot­tonelle for a decade or two. I hate the word Charmin & their stu­pid com­mer­cials. I like the word Cot­tonelle. It sounds French or con­ti­nen­tal or some­thing classy. & I sim­ply like the stuff. But what do I like most? This:

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Straight & narrow

Look at that design! No embossed flow­ers, dots or wavy lines, just sleek straight lines that appeal to my lin­ear design taste. Much like Mid-​Century Mod­ern. (How­ev­er back then toi­let paper rolls even came in col­ors: pink & blue & green & yel­low. I liked those. Still pop­u­lar in Europe, but nowhere to be found in the US — except on Ama­zon, but what isn’t?

I like the feel of Cot­tonelle, but it’s the design that arous­es my sens­es. Plain, basic, lin­ear par­al­lel lines, nev­er devi­at­ing from the begin­ning of the roll to the end. Toi­let paper heav­en. The one con­stant in my life (besides get­ting these Amper­Art issues out once a month).

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Toilet paper terror

One day, just last year, I pur­chased a pack of Cot­tonelle, & noticed the design had changed. No longer straight lines, they were now wavy. I don’t even have a sam­ple to show you because I will not have flow­ery toi­let paper in my bathroom.

So for sev­er­al months I resort­ed to the cheap­est toi­let paper, because it was the only type that was as plain as pos­si­ble, just flat with no design what­so­ev­er. (I imag­ine a corn cob is soft­er than that stuff.) Took near­ly a whole roll to do what a few sheets of the good stuff can do, but at least I did­n’t have to look at embossed flow­ers & squig­gles. (If there were amper­sands I might con­sid­er that.)

TP Motherload

Last Sep­tem­ber I was in a Wal­greens & noticed a spe­cial on Scott toi­let paper which was not only a good sale price, but reduced even more with my rewards card. $3.25 for a 12-​roll pack is a great price, so I went over to check it out, &…

My design is back!

What I found was 12-​packs of toi­let paper that had the same exact design as my for­mer love, Cot­tonelle. But this was Scott. What gives? Who cares? I bought out the store.

Did I attract some stares? Yes, but only stares. Today I would be mugged & robbed, right? 

There was a sur­prise wait­ing for me when I got home, though.

Things aren’t always as they appear

One brand’s trash is another brand’s treasure

I was curi­ous how the Cot­tonelle pat­tern got on a com­peti­tor’s prod­uct, but I did have an idea. Sure enough, Cot­tonelle & Scott are owned by Kimberly-​Clark. So I assume Scott just start­ed using the dies dis­card­ed by Cot­tonelle. I find Scott to be a good enough toi­let paper — after all, it’s the looks that count — so that’s who I’m loy­al to now.

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Best Toilet Paper Review

Here’s an excel­lent review on the top brands of toi­let paper (added to this post in August 2020, now that toi­let paper is a nor­mal com­mod­i­ty again, no longer worth more than gold). The review was writ­ten by Bryan Vu at yourbest​digs​.com. Click here for entire review which cov­ers cost, strength, absorben­cy, lint test, and oth­er details.

Best over­all: Cot­tonelle Ultra Com­fort­Care (used to be my favorite until they changed the design, as told above)

Most lux­u­ri­ous: Quilt­ed North­ern Ultra Plus

Most Eco-​friendly: Silk’n Soft

Best Toilet Paper Review

For you Costco shoppers, this is a fun bit of trivia:

Also from Bryan Vu’s arti­cle:
Kirk­land Sig­na­ture toi­let paper is Costco’s cash crop, the best sell­ing item in the mas­sive bulk-​warehouse store. It’s report­ed­ly well-​researched & stud­ied, scientifically-​engineered & designed to sell, sell, sell! Indeed, they sell more than a bil­lion rolls per year. This brand placed fifth in the review above, as best val­ue. [I bet there are peo­ple who pur­chase a Cost­co mem­ber­ship just for a seem­ing­ly end­less sup­ply of toi­let paper. —Chaz]

The 1973 Toilet Paper Panic

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Helping hand

I will end this post with a hilar­i­ous pho­to of one of my favorite peo­ple, Robin Williams:

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Concept & design notes

I’ve been hold­ing onto the title Over & Under for a few years, plan­ning on using it for a Thanks­giv­ing issue. You know, “Over & under & through the woods to Grand­moth­er’s house we go…” but always con­jured up an image of three bears and a fox. Mix­ing it up with some oth­er woodsy sto­ry, I guess.

All of a sud­den, with toi­let paper eclips­ing all oth­er news, an image of two rolls form­ing an amper­sand came to mind. Sim­ple enough, I thought. But it turned out to be an M.C. Esch­er type of con­cept: trapped in the realm of impos­si­bil­i­ty and illu­sion. The page of sketch­es proves my frustration. 

I final­ly fig­ured some­thing out, and with a bit of per­spec­tive and depth was able to ren­der some­thing pos­si­ble. Maybe I should have kept it an opti­cal illus­tion and become famous like M.C.

The tile back­ground is rem­i­nis­cent of the tile-​walled bath­room in my child­hood (with a sep­a­rate tiled show­er), and in fact I was going to use that palette of turquoise and black. But the back­ground I found in a stock library is more appeal­ing to a wider range of peo­ple, all of whom are con­sumers of the new pre­cious ele­ment, TP.

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