The thing you can't live without--Toliet Paper

How do people deal with their personal hygiene before toilet paper was available?Since paper was not invented until much later in history, it depended on where you lived and what kind of the material was reachable. River water, leaves, hay, rag, stone,sand and hand were on the tool list of cleansing your bottom. In coastal area, mussel shells were quite popular. In Indian and Arab world, left hands and three stones. In Hawaii, the coconut shell. In ancient Roman, poor people used public restroom, the solution in it was a sponge on a L-shaped stick, soaking in salt water, which you had to share with everybody and the stick change only one time a day. The wealthy used the much softer and more comfortable wool soaked in rosewater.
Fast forward to colonial America, the material of choice was corn cob until newspaper was widely available around 1,700. In the late 19th century, the Sear catalog became a popular choice because of its absorbent material until they started printing on glossy, clay-coated paper in 1930's.

The history of the TP

Paper is one of the Four Great Inventions of China, the first standard paper-making process was developed in China during the early 2nd century. That's probably why Chinese have the first record of using toilet paper.Back to the 6th century AD, in early medieval China, the scholar-official 顏之推 wrote about the use of toilet paper: [below cited from wikipidea ]

"Paper on which there are quotations or commentaries from "Five Classics" or the names of sages, I dare not use for toilet purposes"

It implied that paper sometimes were indeed for toilet purposes if the content on it wasn't so important. China is also the first record-holder of toilet paper mass-production. [below cited from wikipidea ] During the early 14th century 元 Dynastyit was recorded that in modern-day 浙江 province alone there was an annual manufacturing of toilet paper amounting in ten million packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets of toilet paper each. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD), it was recorded in 1393 AD that 720,000 sheets of toilet paper (two by three feet in size) were produced for the general use of the Imperial court at the capital of Beijing. From the records of the Imperial Bureau of Supplies (Bao Chao Si) of that same year, it was also recorded that for Emperor Hongwu's imperial family alone, there were 15,000 sheets of special soft-fabric toilet paper made, and each sheet of toilet paper was even perfumed.

The first commercially packaged toilet paper in the U.S was produced in 1857. A New York guy Joeseph C . Gayteey packaged the first toilet paper in flat sheets. He named his product "Gayetty's Medicated Paper". The toilet paper were medicated(moistened) with alo and had his name watermarked on it. Each package contained 500 individual sheets. The product wasn't really a hit.In 1879, Edward and Clarence Scott founded the Scott Paper Company.Their Scott toilet paper was sold in rolls (unperforated) in the early years. In addition, the company did not market their products under the Scott brand, because it was considered an “unmentionable” product during the Victorian era and there was a large amount of public resistance to buying such a daily commodity. To solve that problem, Scott began customizing toilet paper for each merchant-customer. The strategy worked, hence the Waldorf Hotel became a big name of toilet paper. After toilet paper gained more public acceptance, the Scott Company began producing toilet paper under its own brand name in 1896.By 1925 Scott had become the world’s leading producer of toilet paper.

Below are some important time line of TPs' history:

The first producer of 'perforated' toilet paper was the British Perforated Paper Company in 1880. Since then, many manufacturers devoted into the "perforated toilet paper market. Here is a AD of 1886In 1935, Northern Tissue advertises its toilet paper as "splinter-free". It seems that early production of toilet paper has a common problem: splinter.

In 1942, first two-ply toilet paper from St. Andrew's Paper Mill in England; toilet paper becomes softer and more pliable. For most of the rest of the twentieth century, both "hard" and "soft" paper were common. In 1943 novelty toilet paper printed with images of Adolf Hitler .

1973/12/29: comedian Jonny Carson causes a three week toilet paper shortage in the USA after a joke scares consumers into stockpiling supplies.

The technology of TP production and user interface

The technology of toilet paper production can get us almost everything we want: sizes, weights, softness, roughness, water-absorption...etc. Its is available in many types of papers, a variety of decoration and texture. It's sometimes made from recycled paper, but large amounts of virgin tree pulp is still playing the main role in its production.
By 1990, papers containing ingredients like aloe begin to be heavily marketed(in the US), By 2000s and so far, I think technically they can produce anything. Kimberly-Clark was trying to sell a "dispersible pre-moistened perforated toilet paper" which they claim that can be flushed without clogging toilet. They designed a dispenser that can held both a dry-toilet paper roll and a wet one. The product, turned out to be a big failure, due to many reasons, including wrong strategy of campaign and wrong media-exposure time schedule. But the fatal reason was the design: the product was almost twice space-consuming than an ordinary size toilet paper. Not everyones bathroom has space for that, and no one wants to buy something that might require a redecoration of one's own bathroom.But this example shows that with the aids of nowadays technology, the manufactures can produce almost any kind of toilet paper. The reason we don't see more different kinds of product is not necessarily because of technology anymore.

The user interface, which is the design of bathroom itself, also influence the form of toilet paper. In some countries of eastern Asia, bathroom, especially bathroom at home, doesn't necessarily have a paper dispenser in it. People are used to use a package of tissue instead of a roll. In 2000 Japanese even invented "paper-less toilet".The environment and the tradition have a great influence on how people use toilet paper. For example, in some Muslim countries, toilet paper with "wet-strength" is being to use for drying in stead of cleansing.
Russian scientists recently pointed out that because of the increasing of cosmic rays cause by the sun activities, the health conditions of astronauts in every international space station are in danger. Their suggestion to the astronauts: use wet toilet paper wrapping the whole cabin where astronauts live in order to reduce the strength of cosmic rays and protect them.
The Japanese assume that if you give people a flyer, it will end up on the street or in the nearest bin. But if you give something of value, like a small pack of tissues with the advertising message printed on it, the customer will accept and keep it. Today it would be difficult to walk anywhere in a Japanese city without being handed a pack of pocket tissues promoting a service, product or communicating a message.

In Europe, some companies see toilet paper as a Advertisement medium. They invented a machine that has a sensor so you don't have to pull the paper at all, and they sell the space on the toilet paper to some clients for commercial purpose. Some of the buyers even put coupon on it.Since the technology of producing any kind of toilet paper is no longer a problem, it is the variety of different though of human being that make toilet paper having different appearances. For example, print on toilet paper. It is not a necessarily feature of toilet paper and has nothing to do with the function of it. It usually reflect the mental need of people who see it as a expression or a out-let of their thought. For example, there are rolls selling on ebay with Bush or Paris Hilton's face on it.
We can assume that people who buying it not only for the physical usage reason, but also for showing support of the concept behind it. At least we can say they feel the idea is interesting, and paying extra money buying it for their mental demand.

Another example is the "Luxury" packages of toilet paper. It may be quilted or rippled (embossed), scented, colored or patterned, with anti-bacterial chemicals, treated with alo...etc. Despite that there are indeed some "function" elements in it, most of the features added are mainly designed to satisfy the mental need that wanting to use "better product" or feel "safer". or be "chic&stylish". Renova recently have a new serious colored-toilet paper claiming that using color different from white make you chic and in the trend of fashion. On the other hand, artist and designers have different viewpoint seeing toilet paper. Some artist use it only as a symbolic sign to reveal their thought. They think the form of toilet paper as a representation of the way people interact with it and the feelings people tend to have about it. For example, the Thinker and Stinker project created by Zinoo Park.
In the artwork, artist used the from of too paper to preform his concept. It has nothing to do with the original designed purpose of toilet paper anymore.

Designer 原研哉 has another different idea. He thinks designers should play a more active and practical role to push the society forward either in aesthetic aspect or ideological aspect. All designer should always rethink about the essence of design, and how it can be present and involved in people's daily life to put the idea into practice.(Designing design) In the exhibition of "Re Design", he invited several other architects or writers, designers to rethink the ideas behind many everyday object, and then present their thinking on daily object by redesign it. Architect 阪茂 redesigned to toilet paper in to a square shape. Instead of making it easier to use, he made it harder to drag. When you tried to drag the roll, the square shape will bump to the iron lit and make "ka ta ka ta" noise. The purpose of the design is to create a not-so convenient and a sound-alerted user experience to remind people that we should be aware of the environmental impact we caused by over-using toilet paper, and we should be aware that we are flushing our forest into to sewage system.Sources
"A year without Toilet Paper"(new york times2007/03/22)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/garden/22impact.html?pagewanted=3&ei=5070&en=f6b87002075a1e1e&ex=1190001600

http://ille.de/
http://www.ndc.co.jp/hara/home/re_design/index.html#
http://newsbusters.org/node/12226
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-6/Toilet-Paper.html
http://blog.epromos.com/archives/2007/02/japans_top_prom_1.html
http://nobodys-perfect.com/vtpm/ExhibitHall/Informational/tphistory.html
http://www.pockettissueads.co.za/japanese_concept/
http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/toilet_paper/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper
http://www.pockettissueads.co.za/japanese_concept/
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/22270/the_history_of_toilet_paper.html
"Market New Product Successfully"(by Marianne McGarry Wolf, Peter C. Krieg, Kevin J. Clancy
"Designing Design" KenyaHara

Appendix

Here is a description of the working process of early production process [ picture and text quote from George Pacific website] In the manufacture of toilet paper, the sheets] pass over the heated surface of the cylinders of the Fourdrinier Machine [so that] every particle becomes thoroughly sterilized, eliminating all possibility of any germs being carried in the sheets. The continuous sheets come from the machine in Jumbo Rolls of about 50 inch width, which when wound to the desired thickness are removed by huge cranes, eliminating the necessity of the paper being touched to any extent by human hands. After the Jumbo Rolls come from the papermaking machine, they are carried to a cutting machine, where they are slit. . . . Four perforations are made on the sheet at every revolution of the cylinder. After the . . . machine is started it runs continually until the jumbo roll is run off, taking about 35 minutes. The three shafts on the rewinder are filled with cores and when the counter shows the number of sheets on the core, the rewinder shaft is turned over and the sheet chopped off. . . . This rewinder is a very ingenious device used exclusively by the Northern Paper Mills. After the rolls are made up in this manner the labels are pasted on by hand, no practical machine having been developed up to this time. . . . Girls [do this work] behind the table and pack them in a case near at hand. The case is then weighed, nailed, and removed to the conveyor, ready for shipment." Excerpts from Northern Lights (December 1919 & June 1920)