August 26th: Toilet Paper Day

It's Toilet Paper Day, the anniversary of the date in 1871 when toilet paper was first sold on a roll - 1,000 years after the Chinese invented it in 580. Here are ten things you might not know about loo roll.

1. Toilet paper was invented in China in the sixth century. It was a few hundred years before it was manufactured in bulk, again in China, mostly for the royal court.
2. The idea didn't catch on in America until the nineteenth century when a man called Joseph Gayetty introduced it. He had his name printed on every sheet.
3. Another toilet paper milestone came in the 1930s when manufacturers realised that cooking the wood pulp that bit longer turned splinters to mush. Before this it wasn't unknown to find splinters in loo roll. Not only potentially painful, but as the makers of the new splinter free toilet tissue were quick to point out, a possible cause of rectal diseases.
4. What did people do before there was loo roll? It depended where they lived, how much money they had and what was available. In Roman times, rich people used sponges or wool soaked in perfumed Water. Less well off people might use a piece of broken pottery and would scrape rather than wipe. French royals used lace. Leaves, seashells, stones or moss were also used by the common people.
5. The average person uses 100 rolls of toilet paper a year. On average, a roll weighs 27g and has 333 sheets, although the number of sheets varies considerably depending on the quality of the Paper.
6. The most common colour for toilet paper is White, while pastel colours to match the bathroom décor have also been popular. There are also some novelty types. You can get toilet paper with dollar bills printed on it, crosswords and Sudoku puzzles for those who want to amuse themselves while in there. There is also glow in the dark and camouflage toilet paper.
7. Talking of camouflage, an unusual use toilet paper has been put to is camouflaging tanks. US troops during Desert Storm did that. Another unusual use is making wedding dresses out of it. There is an annual competition for fashion designers with a substantial cash prize for the person who can make the best wedding dress out of loo paper. And yes, there are women who have been married in dresses made from toilet tissue. Finally a Japanese author called Koji Suzuki had an entire novel printed on toilet paper. The novel was three feet long, and was set in... a public Toilet.
8. The most expensive brand of toilet paper is Renova, a Portuguese brand which costs $3 a roll. It's three ply, perfumed and comes in a range of colours including more unusual shades like Red and Black. According to some internet sources, Beyonce and Kris Jenner use nothing else.
9. The largest ever toilet roll was made by Charmin. It was eight feet high and had a diameter of more than nine feet, using 1,000,000 square feet of toilet paper – equivalent to 95,000 normal sized rolls. The roll was made to celebrate World Toilet Paper Day.
10. Until the year 2000 there was a toilet paper museum. It was in Madison, Wisconsin, and exhibited toilet paper from all over the world. There were over three thousand rolls in its collection.

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