Wet Wipes vs Toilet Paper: A Historical Perspective

The wet wipes vs toilet paper debate is surprisingly recent, primarily because both wet wipes and toilet paper are surprisingly recent in the long history of human hygiene.

It was not until the 1990’s that wet wipes became popular to wipe baby bottoms in the form that we know them today. There are also make up wet wipes, and wet wipes bucket.

Wet wipes remained a toilet paper alternative primarily for wiping babies bottoms for the next 10-15 years. However, in the last decade, baby wet wipe demand has grown by 50%. This is due in part to the adoption of wet wipes by all ages. And in this last decade, the wet wipes vs toilet paper debate has begun to rage.

Wet Wipes vs Toilet Paper: How Are They Made?

Many of the differences in wet wipes vs toilet paper arise from the way that each is made. And the way that each is made is directly related to the original purpose of each product.

Toilet paper is made from trees. The manufacturing process includes stripping trees of bark, cutting the trees into wood chips, creating a pulp, bleaching the pulp, and pressing it to drain water and flatten the pulp. Toilet paper is designed in this way so that it will break down and dissolve easily when exposed to water.

Wet wipes were originally made to wipe dirty hands. They were made to be durable in order to clean up messes and to be thrown in the trash, not to disintegrate when introduced to water. In fact, disintegration when in contact with a fluid would defeat the very nature of a wet wipe – wet wipes are supposed to be wet; therefore, they should be durable enough to withstand being wet so that consumers do not purchase a disintegrated product in the store.

To provide durability, disinfectant wet wipes are typically composed of various nonwoven fabrics, such as polyester, polypropylene, viscose pulp, and cotton. It may come as a surprise, but some of these non-woven fabrics are actually plastics. The integration of natural and synthetic materials offer wet wipes their durability.

Wet Wipes vs Toilet Paper: Polls on the Internet

What can the metrics tell us about who is winning the adult wet wipes vs toilet paper debate?

We have written about the eco issues with wet wipes extensively in our article here; however, here is a brief introduction. As we discussed above, non woven wipes are designed to be durable enough for heavy duty tasks and to avoid immediate disintegration when in contact with fluid (hence, a “wet” wipe). Therefore, wet wipes do not break down very easily when exposed to toilet water. In fact, an experiment performed by Consumer Reports (watch the video, it is fascinating) indicates that even “flushable” wipes may not break down quickly enough. On the contrary, toilet paper immediately begins degrading when it touches water, so it does not cause issues after flushing.