No Tube, No Problem: Working Past Anxiety to Embrace the Future of Toilet Paper

Tubeless Toilet Paper (artist's rendition)

This blog is part of a project headed up by Simpler Living blogger Naomi Seldin and also includes Daniel Nester. To read Naomi’s full review, click here. Keep an eye on Dan’s blog for his review sometime later today.

Our story begins several weeks ago with a clandestine meeting at Flavour Cafe in Troy.

I sat at a table by myself, ordered food and tried to look inconspicuous. Or did that make me look more suspicious? I was meeting someone in secret, so should I pretend to not be waiting for someone or keep my cool like it’s no big thing?

Then she came. A friend for some time, recently married, she carried with her a red tote bag. We exchanged brief pleasantries as she sat down and cautiously slid the bag towards me.

I massaged the material with my index and middle fingers. Interesting material. Not quite plastic, but not smooth enough to be a natural fiber.

“It’s in there,” she said.

The “it” she spoke about was something I had to promise her I wouldn’t mention, tweet, or blog about until it was time. I opened the bag and removed the item.

“I can’t believe when I’m seeing,” I breathlessly exclaimed.

“That’s right,” she said. “Tubeless toilet paper.”

———

The concept isn’t complicated, but it is daunting: take a roll of toilet paper and remove that cumbersome brown cardboard tube that holds it together. It seems like a simple idea, but it took a marketing movement that made folks willing to plop down extra cash for anything labeled organic or “green” to make it happen.

I was a skeptic from the outset. The idea of the most fundamental product in the home undergoing such a radical change was discomforting and made me anxious. How would it work? Would it maintain consistency? And what on Earth would happen when it got to the end?

Well, I’m happy to report that it held up and is a purchase I would gladly make without hesitation, providing the price is right.

The most pleasant part of the experience is the unfurling. Without the cardboard tube, the roll was smooth and effortless. There was no jerkiness, uneven rotations, or awkward clunks.

Nor was there a problem with consistency. It seems that problem was solved by the density of the roll itself.

As for what happened at the end, I had to ask my roommate.

Scott Naturals Tube-Free Toilet Paper

“Hey Steve,” I asked one day. “I was gonna write about that tubeless toilet paper. Did you use the last of it?”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Sorry, I forgot you were writing about it.”

“No, that’s my bad, I didn’t tell you. So what happened at the end?”

Steve looked up and put his right hand on his forehead, a pose he strikes when he’s in thought or trying to recall something.

“I think it…uh…it just stopped?”

“Were there any problems?”

“Nope!”

And there you have it. Whatever happens at the end, it’s so natural and inconsequential that it didn’t strike my roommate as memorable nor was it the cause of great alarm.

So when it comes to tubeless toilet paper, don’t be apprehensive. Change like this is nothing to be afraid of. If anything, it should be embraced.

Although I’d suggest that you buy it in a store instead of acquiring it via a clandestine exchange with a fellow blogger in front of confused co-ed baristas.