Foreword:
I was relaxing and watching television one night, and I could not stop thinking about, of all things, a toilet paper commercial. It took me time to process what I had just watched. It was breaking my design brain. After the advent of streaming and the promise of commercial free entertainment, platforms have succumbed to the irresistibly easy revenue of ads. On my screen, woven between the climactic points of a ridiculous reality show, was a toilet paper ad featuring a cartoon bear family. These bears have been featured in commercials since 2000 with tag lines like, “Anything less is unbearable” and “the only one for bear bottoms” (Charmin 2025). The bears were familiar to me; I’ve seen them in ads for twenty-five years. What they were selling was, however, totally new. It was not another ply added to their already ultra-soft paper; it was a totally new “tear technology.” Yes, “tear technology.” They were highlighting a new type of roll design—one that no longer had a perforated, straight line to tear off each square. They designed and launched a roll that featured a scalloped perforated edge. Designed and tested for easier tear-away, it supposedly resulted in in a cleaner rip. Thus, the square was no longer square. My mind was racing. What does this mean for the paper industry and the world of perforation. Would we now have scalloped paper towels? Scalloped tickets? Scalloped coupons? Scalloped receipts? Scalloped invoices? Would anything “tear-off” ever be square ever again? After more than a century of toilet paper innovation, how are we just arriving at this? Who needs or asked for this? What value does this bring to humanity? Why are designers making this? Out of curiosity, I did a quick search. Apparently, this innovation “Smooth Tear” took over five years to develop and addresses the issue of uneven tearing, which was consumers #1 complaint to their call center (Higgs 2023). Wait?! There’s a toilet paper hotline?
There was a time, not so long ago, when the entire world was hunting for toilet paper. In 2020, the fear of returning to ancient methods of wiping—using leaves, bark, moss, corncobs, or even one’s hand—sent people into a mad scramble, stockpiling hundreds of rolls of toilet paper, crippling the paper industry. This mad-stashing sent supply chains around the world into overdrive trying to meet the demand. People were willing to barter, steal, or worse yet bid on eBay to horde extra supplies. This was a rare moment in time when people did not care if the toilet paper was single ply, two ply, ultra-plush, with or without aloe, scented or unscented, pattered or unpattern, sustainably harvested, or made of ancient old growth red wood trees, so long as it was not leaves from their yard. Its design, marketing, engineering, origin, material, shelf position, and/or sustainability was irrelevant. For the first time since its invention in sixth-century China, its value was function over form (Needham 1980).
Five years later, the 2020 panic-purchase period is now a historic footnote, alongside the forgotten 1973 panic-buying shortage in the United States (Time 1974). As for the paper industry, they are left longing for the panic days when toilet paper riveled gold on the commodities markets. Prior to the 1973 panic, toilet paper demand was likely at its highest when the invention of rolled paper hit the market in 1890, by the Scott Paper Company (Griffenhagen 1999). Other noteworthy form and function innovations include: 1857 Joseph Gayetty’s “medicated paper” was aloe-infused and sold in flat sheets (Poynter 1961). In 1935 The Northen Tissue Company developed “splinter-free” paper (Griffenhagen 1999). Two-ply was invented in 1942 by St. Andrew’s Paper Mill in England (Bichard 2014). In 1987 recycled paper was introduced (Green 2021), and the 2000’s saw the introduction of three-ply and bamboo. Yet, none of these advances could boost sales like the fear of returning to the days of wiping with tree bark and corncobs.
When you look around, there are in fact many designers designing (and designing for) “sh*t.” There is toilet paper form/function, Cologuard (a box where one sends their stool in the mail for cancer screening), diaper innovation, the toilet and its industrial design and engineering, or the millions of other sh*t-related products designed to trick us into believing that we are more sophisticated than our ancestors. Going from the introduction of recycled toilet paper in 1987 to three-ply paper in the 2000’s is an example of designers not being able to collectively stand up and critique its value. There are peoples around the world that do not use toilet paper, and yet some corporations have invented a market for three-ply. Unfortunately, there is always someone or some entity who’s hungry enough, in need of the next job, the next sales bump, willing to overlook their values. It’s not because they want to—but because they think they need to. And thus, we arrive at the conflicting value of what is best for humanity and the planet—possibly even beyond designing three-ply, four-ply, ten-ply, or even a 24-karat gold luxury toilet paper for preservation (Achiam 2025).
These continuous attempts to separate ourselves from our ancestors though design, innovation, capitalism, consumerism, or any other “justified” drivers of planetary destruction, will ultimately contribute our demise. The design industry values concepts like circular economics to help ease environmental impact, all while “helping” to maintaining its core economic value and justification. It is a little bit like injecting Botox to “prevent” aging. Every little bit helps, so to speak, but ageing is inevitable. What might “help” more might be a shift in the perception of design value: from object and objective.
What goes into the consideration of debating between the following choices: name brand verses generic; single-ply verses two-ply toilet paper; or—on a greater scale of excessive material waste and pollution—electric verses combustion engine? The decision is often less about the object itself and more often has to do with the values of the beholder. The value of an alternative “objective” needs to be clearly designed and communicated like any other designed “object.” Designing changes to one’s values takes considerable time, patience, alteration, and critical analysis, which makes designing values one of the greatest design challenges facing humanity.
These cartoon bears left me with more questions than answers. Is the uneven tear resulting from straight perforated toilet paper a “great design challenge” worthy of bold new ideas and innovative design solutions? Is the value of the objective worthy of a new design object? Is it worthy of a significant investment of resources? Does only the free market determine its value? When is enough, enough? I for one am not radical enough to return to using leaves, but am I willing to buy the values of scalloped toilet paper? Maybe if it was the last roll on the shelf.
______
* The 1973 crisis occurred around the same time as the oil and gas shortage. It started because of a joke told on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson.
Bibliography
Achiam, J. (n.d.). Toilet Paper: Luxury’s Final Frontier. Into The Gloss. Retrieved July 30, 2025, from https://intothegloss.com/2014/07/black-toilet-paper/
Bichard, J. (2014). Toilet paper: A cultural history. Thames & Hudson.
Charmin Toilet Paper History. (n.d.). Retrieved July 30, 2025, from https://www.charmin.com/en-us/about-us
Green America, “Recycled Toilet Paper Timeline,” GreenAmerica.org, 2021.
Griffenhagen, G. B., Bogard, M. (1999). History of Drug Containers and Their Labels. United States: American Institute of the History of Pharmacy.
Higgs, R. cleveland com. (2023, October 2). So long toilet paper squares? Scalloped-edge coming from Charmin for better wipe. Cleveland. https://www.cleveland.com/business/2023/10/so-long-toilet-paper-squares-scalloped-edge-coming-from-charmin-for-better-wipe.html
Needham, J., Ping-Yu, H., Gwei-Djen, L., & Sivin, N. (1980). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 4, Spagyrical Discovery and Invention: Apparatus, Theories and Gifts. Cambridge University Press.
Time Magazine. (1974, January 7). The panic that wasn’t. Time Magazine, 103(1).