Often, people take all the small things in their lives for granted. For example, have you ever had a stuffed nose and realized that being able to breathe properly is often overlooked? What if we told you that some of the products we use today are a result of generations of innovations and are giving us the best possible feeling? It will be even more crazy when we tell you that this product is toilet paper! It’s true; Toilet paper wasn’t always as comfortable as it is today, and it could even hurt you. Keep on reading to discover more about the evolution of toilet paper!
Toilet Paper Used To Give You Splinters
When you go to a supermarket, you can find a whole aisle dedicated to toilet paper. You can choose how many layers it will have and how soft it is, and you can even choose toilet paper that has a scent! However, toilet paper wasn’t always as comfortable to use! And we’re not saying that it wasn’t strong enough but more that it would be physically painful to use.
The way toilet paper used to be made would leave quite a bit of the pulp from the wood in the paper itself. These little wood pieces could give you splinters when you wipe your behind with them! It was also not nice if you were cleaning your privates and suddenly got splinters! In 1935, the way the paper was made changed, ensuring no splinters could get through and end up in the final product! From then on, the evolution of toilet paper started!
At least they had paper; before that, people used community sponges!
If you go back even further to the times of the Roman Empire, it was even worse. There was no such thing as paper or privacy when you went to the bathroom. Instead, you would go to a common room where you often had over 20 seats of people using the bathroom at the same time. When the time was there to wipe, you just got a sponge on a stick and a bucket of water. The worst part was that there were only a few sponges per room, so you had to share them with others, which made the first chair with access to the sponge the most desirable!
