Why is toilet paper always white?

Not simply a cosmetic or hygiene issue, the white toilet paper is a complicated story with many different impact factors.

>>>Interesting history of toilet paper

Toilet paper is strange. Although almost every day we use it to protect one of the most sensitive parts of the body, we rarely think about where the toilet paper comes from and how it is manufactured. Another fact that may surprise you is that toilet paper is not commonly used in the US until the early 20th century and even later in many countries.

In the US, around the middle of the 20th century, toilet paper has different colors to "match" with how to decorate the bathroom. The heyday of multicolored toilet paper was in the 1970s, and then the color paper gradually disappeared. Today, you can hardly find a color roll of toilet paper. Why is toilet paper always white?

There are a number of reasons, but one of the basic reasons why toilet paper is white, as well as most toilets are white, is that white looks cleaner, more hygienic than brown paper. If toilet paper is brown, do you want to use it? Or the more logical question is, do you prefer toilet paper that is more white? Manufacturers of toilet paper, like Kimberly-Clark, have spoken together to determine the white color of toilet paper rolls. Maybe, they have done in-depth marketing studies to draw conclusions, toilet paper must be white.

Of course, there are other factors. The process of bleaching toilet paper in addition to providing color also helps soften the paper . Why is that? Because the bleaching process can remove lignin, a wood polymer acts as a glue to hold the fibers together and make the plant harder. Dr. Hou-Min Chang of NC State University in Raleigh said: "Without lignin, the tree can only grow about 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall."

In addition to softening paper, removing lignin also helps the paper become more durable. For example, if you see an old newspaper, you can see that the newspaper started yellowing, this yellow is because the newspaper has lignin.

In addition to bleaching, there are many other reasons that make toilet paper white, from reducing the environmental impact of not having to use dyes, to reducing skin irritation and many other health factors, or help reduce paper decomposition time .

Of course, things like environmental impact or user health risk have never prevented businesses from bleaching toilet paper, or adding other chemicals to increase the softness, toughness of paper, even If you use color dyes to increase paper sales, companies will also use them.

Therefore, in addition to all the above reasonable factors, the main reason for white toilet paper is probably at cost. For coloring, they will have to add the cost of buying dyes. This is expensive but does not increase the sales for the manufacturer, because users prefer the white color. Therefore, there is not enough incentive for manufacturers to produce colored toilet paper products, instead of the current white paper. Therefore, it is difficult to find floating toilet paper rolls other than white.