Now that we’re all becoming more aware of the impact our purchasing choices can have on the planet, many of us are swapping out our typical buys for eco-friendly alternatives.
But would you consider switching up your bathroom habits to switch to a greener alternative that saves you money?
One person who has is YouTuber and mother-of-seven Jayme Janelle who uses “family cloth” instead of toilet paper.
Over the last couple of years, the mom has created several videos on the topic where she answers viewers’ questions and has shown her audience how they can make their own cloths.
Given 2020 was marked by the start of the pandemic and the subsequent toilet paper shortages, Jayme said in that year she only had to buy two packets of loo roll for guests.
Instead of toilet paper, the family instead use a bidet and dry off with the rags.
Family Cloth 1 Year Later | 6 Most Common Question's Answeredwww.youtube.com
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Speaking in 2020, she said she only had to buy two packets of toilet roll in the past year for guests.
She washes the wet sacks of used rags once a week, but sometimes will put on a second load.
Although she doesn’t pre-soak, she said she would if she only washed them once a month.
She said: “Although I don’t pre-soak them, I do wash them on a hot wash with a cold rinse and I wash them on our sanitary cycle on our washer.
''If your washer doesn't have a sanitary cycle, then I probably would either do a pre-soak or at least a second rinse.''
Addressing another common question from viewers, she said the cloths don’t come out stained.
A year into using them is when the first cloth came out of the washer with a stain, and she suspects it was used by one of her younger children who hasn’t “mastered the use of the bidet yet”, so she rewashed it.
She usually puts the rags into their own cycle in the washing machine to keep them separated from regular laundry, but sometimes she tosses them in with clothes.
She explained: “That's usually when somebody has gone through a bag of wipes really fast and it's not my typical laundry day, and because I don't like washing just a teeny tiny load, even though our washer does have a sensor and so it does save water… it must be ingrained from my childhood.''
The rags don’t cause the bathroom to smell, either.
''We've never had a stink problem in our bathrooms,” she said. “I've had guests come that actually tell me that my house smells good.''
Despite being a fan of the eco-friendly alternative to toilet roll, she said she doesn’t know if she could bring herself to use them if she didn’t have a bidet.
She said: ''Bidets are...they're just great and they allow us to literally just dry ourselves and unlike toilet paper with a bidet, cloth wipes don’t fall apart getting all wet.
''They work so well together.
''I would think without a bidet, I would still be using cloth wipes but then for sure would be pre-soaking them, all the time no matter what.
“With bidets the cloth wipes just don’t get that messy at all. Without bidets, different story.”
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