How do we make toilet paper and tissue soft?

Readers of our blog know that we’re completely unabashed about our toilet paper. In fact, we do everything we can to bring our customers behind the curtains and see how our products are made. Today, we’re showcasing softness - how we ensure every roll of Naked Sprout toilet paper balances softness and strength while keeping things sustainable.

Choosing eco toilet paper shouldn’t mean settling for less. So, what makes a toilet roll worthy of a place in your loo? Let’s take a closer look. 

What makes toilet paper soft?

Stroll down the toilet roll aisle at your local supermarket and you’ll see words and images that suggest softness, with images of clouds, quilting, and cuddly animals covering the packaging of well-known brands. When it comes to toilet paper, softness is king. But where does it come from? What makes toilet paper softer than writing paper? 

The secret lies in something called “crepe.

Making any kind of paper means drying a wet pulp mixture. If you are making tissue, the next step is to use a creping blade to gently separate the sheet of dried pulp from the drying surface. This process causes the paper to buckle slightly, creating millions of tiny micro-folds -  turning the surface of each sheet into a landscape of miniature hills and valleys.

These folds increase the bulk of the paper, giving it that fluffy feeling we want from soft toilet paper. To take it a step further, we can combine two layers (or “plys”) of creped paper and emboss a subtle pattern onto them. This traps air between the layers, making the tissue feel even softer.

This is how tissue is made, and it’s how we make Naked Sprout! Although we should point out that the fuel we use for drying is renewable biofuel, not the fossil fuels used by most of the paper and tissue industry! 

We can adjust the softness of our toilet tissue by tweaking the angle or pressure of the creping blade, creating more or fewer folds. But here’s the catch: more folds makes paper feel softer, but it also makes it weaker.

Making soft toilet paper dissolvable toilet paper

Softness is great, but strength is just as important. Toilet paper needs to be strong enough that it doesn’t break down in your hand, but weak enough to dissolve easily in water.

The strength of our toilet paper comes from the fibres in the pulp - either bamboo or recycled cardboard in our case. These fibres intertwine when the material is pulped, and bond as they dry, giving the paper its strength when dry. However, when wet, the fibres quickly unravel, allowing the paper to break down easily.

Achieving the perfect balance of strong and soft depends on the raw materials, the manufacturing process, the adhesive used to bond the plys, and, of course, the all-important creping process.

We test the dry and wet strength of our paper to make sure it fits within normal industry parameters for toilet paper. Naked Sprout tissue is tested to handle around 74 N/m when it’s dry, and 0 N/m when it’s wet, meaning it dissolves effortlessly.

Who does the testing? 

Our toilet paper whisperers

To make sure every roll of Naked Sprout is up to scratch, we rely on a team of experts at our factory. Here is a picture of one of our most experienced lab managers, Leo. 

Leo and his colleagues oversee every batch of toilet paper at our factory, monitoring everything from crepe levels to strength (both wet and dry) in real time. If something’s not quite right, that batch gets pulled from the production line and sent back to the beginning to be pulped again.

We don’t stop there. During the final cutting and boxing stage, we run hourly checks on the finished products. We inspect roll weight, diameter, and width. If something looks off, we pause production and trace the issue back to the precise moment that the problem occurred. Faulty products go back to our pulping centre, ready for a new life as recycled toilet rolls

This system of checks allows us to produce consistently good toilet paper (we would say great toilet paper) without any waste. 

Soft toilet roll that doesn’t compromise on sustainability

Thank you for joining us on another trip behind the scenes at Naked Sprout! 

We want the most sustainable toilet paper to be the best choice when it comes to affordability, convenience, and quality as well. The same care goes into our paper kitchen towels and every box of tissues that we make. 

As always, the most important judges of our quality are our customers. If you ever receive a roll or box that doesn’t meet your expectations, we want to hear from you. We’ll always replace any “blooper rolls” you receive, and your feedback is invaluable!

Want to try soft toilet paper with solid green credentials?

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