The world has plenty of problems today. But there are many reasons why its current inhabitants should appreciate living in the 21st century. One reason has been taken for granted until now, when The Washington Post website included a story about the evolution of ... toilet paper.
It’s a surprisingly fascinating topic, made timely by the 2023 redesign of Charmin’s Ultra Soft rolls. Instead of a straight perforated line between each sheet, the line is now wavy, or scalloped.
The inspiration for this change: “to prevent the scourge of the uneven tear,” the Post reported. Here we all thought that getting only part of a sheet was a minor annoyance, to be solved by adding a couple more squares. But no, it is a scourge.
The Charmin Smooth Tear, as the new rolls have been trademarked, is the product of five years of research and development. Five years for a wavy toilet paper perforation — can you believe that? It might not be a fair comparison, but it took less than a year to develop the covid-19 vaccine.
The redesign received some media attention, since toilet paper is a familiar product. The CEO of Charmin’s owner, Proctor & Gamble, said in a recent earnings report that the new wave is “driving significant levels of delight and 5 percent growth on the Charmin business.”
As the Post noted, this may not transform the world of toilet paper, but it certainly provides “a window into the corporate quest to improve this most mundane household product.”
A bit of TP history makes the topic more appreciated. Paper was invented in China 2,000 years ago, but nobody thought to create a specific bathroom paper product until the middle of the 19th century. It took more than 30 years to catch on, when the Scott brothers put paper on a roll for easy dispensation.
Before that, people cleaned up with whatever they had available — corn cobs, leaves, old newspapers and even the Sears catalog before it switched to printing on glossy magazine paper.
(Perhaps even worse, there was no Bath & Body Works hand soap available back for washing up afterward. Which is one more reason to appreciate the simple but wonderful elements of modern times.)
Between then and now, the most important innovation came during the 1930s, when manufacturers advertised their “splinter-free” toilet paper. That actually sounds like a significant improvement.
Now to Charmin’s innovation. The company’s consumer research said people didn’t like uneven tears. Thus the quest for “the ideal dispensing experience” — a P&G vice president really said that.
Researchers stamped various perforations onto paper to see how much force it took to tear off one square. They considered perforations with designs on the paper. They even tested the rolls as they unwound from the front — and from the back.
But they spent the most time figuring out how to manufacture the scalloped perforations on a large scale. The scallops had to be strong enough to handle manufacturing equipment pulling the paper along for it to be rolled up. Evidently they figured it out.
It falls to television sage George Costanza of “Seinfeld” fame to present the end of the story.
In a quote that began the Post’s article, George offered this insight in one episode: “Do you realize that toilet paper has not changed in my lifetime? And in 10,000 years, it will still be exactly the same, because really, what else can they do?”
It just so happens that they can do a lot.
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
