MINNEAPOLIS — We all remember the toilet paper shortage of 2020. People fighting over every last square and because of this, people started looking for other means of getting clean
I'm talking about the BIDET! You know, the toilet that gives your behind the "car wash treatment."
So I asked our Sunrisers what they think about the Euro-style toilet and boy did I get some great responses:
This Sunriser told me they bought one in case toilet paper continued to be scarce. They also recommend using warm water unless you want an extra "wake up" in the morning.
This person writes that they even have a heated seat and that non-bidet toilets are "barbaric".
B.K. has a bidet on every single toilet in her house! She went on to say she wants to give them as housewarming gifts.
Almost every person who responded said the bidet was "life changing".
So, I'm "flushing" out the nonsense and getting to the "bottom" of this "bidet boom."
"The thing that has been the most worth my money... has been the bidet," said KFAN radio producer and "bidet aficionado" Zach Halverson, who's made a splash on the airwaves about his love of the bidet.
"It just makes sense... when you think about if you clean up a spill on a counter, any sort of mess, you need to clean up you need some water based solution and for some reason when you go to the bathroom we just use straight up paper," said Zach.
Zach makes a good point, and if the toilet paper shortage of 2020 tells you anything its that we Americans use A LOT of toilet paper.
In fact, the average-pooping human uses 57 sheets of toilet paper a day, and when we started running out a lot of people became "bidet-curious".
"We are truly educating our customers as to why a bidet is way cleaner, way healthier, it's way more environmentally friendly, it's way more cost effective, it saves the planet... it's like win-win-win-win-win and people are trepidatious on changing their entire habit they've done for three generations," said Miki Agrawal, the founder of the Tushy bidet, which is a spray attachment you can essentially add to any toilet.
Miki understands why people may be hesitant to make the switch, but she wasn't surprised with the positive customer feedback after her bidet business started booming in 2020.
"We just kept our doors open and we have been educating people for a really long time," said Miki. "Tushy was a top of mind solution to solve for this, saying 'Hey you don't actually need TP during the pandemic if you can't go and get any... you can use our bidet and bamboo butt towels.'"
Miki tells us Tushy bidet sales spiked in March and April of 2020 and then leveled off, and is now five times higher than pre-pandemic sales.
"It was just a huge 'Aha' moment that happened during this time and it was amazing to watch," said Miki.
Zach couldn't agree more and is still trying to get the rest of the Powertrip morning show on the bidet-train.
"I hope that down the road, we all look back at this time period and we wonder what took us so long, why isn't this in every single home?" said Zach. "It should be like a tv, like a washing machine... bidets for everyone. I hope it happens."