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Comment by pmiller2 | Hacker News Reader

I doubt the bidet thing is going to happen. TP is back in stock now.

The limiting factors for bidets were work toilets and the weirdness factor. We’re still working from home (for those who can), and the makers of washlets sold out. They’re going to stop being a weird niche thing, and now it’s going to be a question of what people prefer.

The most important piece of the puzzle already happened: people know bidets are now.

If you ever did a bathroom renovation and went to a decently large plumbing supply store, they had a full bidet section for a while now. This time, more people are actually going to look at it.

A large chunk of my peer group got cheap bidets at the beginning of the pandemic when toilet paper ran out, so it's at least semi normalized even though its not pervasive. I no longer have to explain what it is or why it's great. That's a massive step forward.

It did in my apartment, don't know how I lived without it

Did what exactly?

Probably got an inexpensive bidet attachment for the toilet. Which for 20-40 bucks is an awesome investment

If you look at extreme Japanese toilets, truth is stranger than fiction. There is a lot of space between TP and a full robo-toilet. All I know is that I don't have space for a bidet and a toilet in my house.

a separate bidet is a European thing.

In japan they are all built into the toilet, and sometimes the sink as well.

A lot of people are buying bidet toilet seats, which retrofit onto existing toilets.

I guess they're technically called "washlets", but in my experience they're usually called bidets in America.

I think washlets is just Toto's name for it, and they happen to be the "big high end brand" for them. It's a bidet seat for everyone else you ask :)

the easiest solution is a "bum gun" type setup that is common in South East Asia: https://www.google.com/search?q=spray+bidet. I can't imagine living without one

Perhaps it already happened, but people don't know because they aren't visiting each other's houses.

Are you saying the reason TP is back in stock is because enough people bought bidets to reduce demand for residential TP? That would be interesting.

I'm sure at some point the TP pipeline got reworked to shift away from commercial production and towards consumer sized rolls.

That seems plausible, but do you have any information showing that’s the case? I never thought I’d be so interested in either TP or consumer supply chains until this happened, lol.

I read early in the pandemic that the problem was that a huge amount of TP was cheap and massive rolls for offices, which consumers can’t use.

As far as them reworking the supply chains, that’s me speculating.

Don't you still need a bit of TP to dry off?

With a good bidet, you'll find the TP is useless afterward. You're really just getting wet paper on your fingers for no reason.

Having a dry butt is nice. Otherwise you're giving yourself an instant case of severe swamp-ass.

Yeah, but you don't really use toilet paper for it. People usually use a separate towel.

I just threw up a little in my mouth. I've used many a bidet, and they never get anything completely clean like TP does. I can't imagine building up residue on a towel like that.

But it's slow and stinks up the room with fresh warm feces...

TP is still thin here. paper product isle was cleared out completely again yesterday at least, ugh

first encountered the butt gun when I was in Thailand. It was the first major upgrade I got for my home when I was back in the states. Using toilet paper feels so uncivilized by comparison.

Imagine not knowing how to use the 3 seashells.

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