Bidets – which clean you with a jet of water, reducing the need for tissues – certainly weren’t the only items people waited months for during this strange time. But while many have regretted purchasing their Pelotons or even their homes, those who installed the bathroom fixture at the height of the great toilet paper shortage of 2020 are far from remorseful. Instead, they became true believers, evangelizing to family and friends and trying to help the United States catch up with the rest of the world on bidet use.
Rosanne Orgill, who lives outside Salt Lake City, purchased three bidet attachments for her toilet in spring 2020. (Bidet attachments and bidet seats are installed directly on existing toilets, whereas bidets are self-contained devices.) Orgill’s husband, who had traveled to dozens of countries before meeting, “often spoke of the beauty of bidets and…how strange it was that America didn’t have them because “There’s really no other way to clean yourself,” she says. So, as the supply of toilet paper dwindled, she saw advertisements for bidets and decided to take the plunge. She installed the attachments herself, which was not without difficulty. One leaked water all over the floor and she had to call a plumber.
Even that didn’t bother her during the bidet experiment. “I love them now,” says Orgill. “I just don’t know how people survive without them.”
Like Orgill, Ryan Deitsch felt compelled by the threat of running out of TP to think about alternatives. Growing up in Florida, he experienced the stress of toilet paper shortages during hurricane season, when his family would stockpile rolls in case they ran out. Amid the upheaval caused by the pandemic, he began to reevaluate his life choices.
“Are the things we do – is it necessarily the right way? The best way? Are there other ways? he remembers asking himself. “People have really started to rethink parts of their daily lives. And in my case and that of many others…we bought bidets.
He calls himself an “absolute fan”. He appreciates having reduced his toilet paper consumption, which allows him to save money and reduce his environmental impact. It feels cleaner. And now, as a renter in New York, an important consideration for him when choosing an apartment is whether the bathroom configuration works with his bidet.
Although Sydney Cano, of Arlington, Virginia, purchased and installed her bidet attachment during the pandemic, she considers the timing coincidental rather than causal. Even before Covid, she said, her Muslim friends in particular had recommended the device to her. (The Quran contains specific instructions on cleanliness, and bathrooms in Muslim countries tend to come with bidets.) Cano only wishes she had listened to them sooner: She is now a die-hard lover of bidets, who has since converted. then boyfriend and his mother.
“Without exaggeration, my life has literally changed,” she says. “I can’t live without mine now. In fact, I will never live the rest of my life without using mine. I have a travel one, so I never go without it.
Despite the wave of new converts, the United States still lags far behind many other countries in bidet ownership. (Americans, meanwhile, lead the world in per capita toilet paper use.) About eight in 10 Japanese households, for example, have a toilet-bidet combo, according to a 2018 government survey In 1975, Italy passed a law requiring every residence to be equipped with a bidet. You will find them everywhere in Europe, Asia and South America.
The market in the United States only seems to be expanding. While only 6% of American adults already have a bidet in their home, an additional 41% want to own one, according to a YouGov poll. Lin, of BidetKing.com, has recently sold his products to U.S. hotels and even highway rest stops.
He says he’s seen a marked difference in Americans’ attitudes toward bidets, particularly in comments on his company’s Facebook ads. Before the pandemic, “there were a lot of people who were like, ‘Oh, my God, this is so weird.’ “Oh, why would anyone want to do that?” I’ll just wipe, thank you very much.’ » Now, he says, these kinds of remarks appear much less frequently.
It helps, he says, that bidet enthusiasts tend to be an enthusiastic bunch. “A bidet user can’t help but talk about it with his friends. They talk about it to their friends, they talk about it to their family. … Just because you can go out again doesn’t mean you’ll just go back to using toilet paper. We have you for life.
Miki Agrawal, founder and creative director of start-up Tushy, which specializes in bidet accessories, says the company saw its turnover quintuple in 2020, but this figure has still not stabilized. In fact, she says revenue has since continued to increase 20% year over year.
Agrawal credits the toilet paper shortage as the impetus that helped the bidet-curious finally take the plunge. For years, she says, companies like hers have been laying the groundwork, arguing to the market that toilet paper is less hygienic and more expensive, and can exacerbate chronic illnesses such as urinary tract infections and hemorrhoids. . “And then 2020 comes, and we had millions of people looking overboard and they all jumped,” she says.
In fact, so many people jumped at the chance that consumers like Josh Stutte were left out. He didn’t find a bidet in his online searches (many of the sites selling them during the pandemic were new and looked like scams), so “we were just living on rations, like the one we got from Safeway and didn’t anywhere,” he said. Then, for Christmas 2020, his brother-in-law bought his family the perfect gift: a bidet. In the end, Stutte said, it was worth the wait: “It’s just better.” »
Giving bidets as gifts has become a surprisingly common practice, according to Bill Strang, president of operations and e-commerce at Toto, a Japanese manufacturer of luxury toilets and bidets. Typically, bathroom fixture sales stabilize before Thanksgiving, he says, because people don’t remodel as much during the holidays.
But Toto has seen the opposite trend when it comes to its bidet business. “It has doubled and tripled in some cases [around the holidays]. It was remarkable,” Strang says. Consumer research told them that people viewed the product as a luxury that their loved ones were not likely to buy for themselves.
At the annual Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Las Vegas in February, bidets continued to enjoy their moment in the sun. Nicole Krawcke, editor-in-chief of Plumbing & Mechanical and PM Engineer magazines, was there as she does every year. A trend for 2024: It has seen the industry rely heavily on the device’s benefits for the elderly and those with reduced mobility, adding handles and other safety features. “Having something like this in your home calms the caregiver and also the person they are caring for… making it easier for them to go to the bathroom and not have to feel embarrassed asking someone for help one,” she said.
It’s not like Krawcke needs convincing of the bidet’s countless benefits. Not only does she cover the industry as a journalist, but she herself is the owner of a bidet attachment that she says she originally purchased for “research” purposes. It distributes heated water And it has a heated seat. “They say once you try it, you never go back,” she says. After three years, “we still use ours at home.”
