Kitra Cahna for The New York Times
CURIOSITY Lenora Campos, left, demonstrates the benefits of the Toto Washlet to passers-by in Times Square; a plastic bubble on the bidet seat shields them from spraying water.
LOUIS FALSETTI, a retired New York police captain, comes across as an average American, with normal American tastes and habits. But last year, not long after his 58th birthday, he discovered the Toto Washlet, a Japanese-made bathroom fixture that has not caught on in the American market, largely because of the change in behavior it asks of consumers. And unlike most of his countrymen — or his wife, who balked at the price of the model the couple ended up buying, $1,248 — he was immediately smitten.
MR. BIDET Arnold Cohen displays his own bidet seat at a trade show in 1964.
Now, after 15 months of regular use, both Falsettis are ardent fans of the Washlet. “It sounds crazy,” Mr. Falsetti said, “that you could like a toilet bowl seat so much.”
More precisely, it is a bidet seat, which attaches to a standard toilet, warms to a preset temperature on cold mornings and reduces or eliminates toilet paper waste. It does its main job with a remote-controlled retractable wand that spouts oscillating jets of well-aimed aerated water and a dryer that emits warm air.
Although Americans have long shied away from conventional bidets, which are common in other countries, and the newer bidet seats, at least two major companies, Kohler and Toto, expect the seat to overcome that resistance eventually.
Last year, Kohler, the American maker of plumbing fixtures, introduced its first bidet seat, the C3, so named for its main selling points: cleanliness, comfort and convenience. This year, Toto, which began selling seats in the United States in 1990, significantly increased its marketing efforts.
Toto started to offer a high-tech seat, the S400, with hands-free flushing and a lid that opens and closes automatically, and kicked off a billboard and Internet advertising campaign with the slogan Clean Is Happy, an attempt to neutralize the product’s taboo factor. (In July the Times Square Church, an interdenominational house of worship at 51st Street and Broadway, felt compelled to seek a restraining order to prevent the campaign’s first billboard — a two-story banner depicting a row of naked derrières painted with smiley faces — from going up on the building that houses the church. Toto and Van Wagner Communications, the company installing the sign, relented and covered the derrières.)
Toto has promoted its bidet seats in the United States before, with print advertising at first and a short-lived infomercial in 2004.
Lenora Campos, a Toto spokeswoman, said the company believes the time is right for a breakthrough because of the current interest in environmental issues (bidets reduce paper waste) and the “obsession with personal hygiene: antibacterial soap and things.” (“We use water to clean everything else in our lives: dishes, clothes,” she said, summarizing the company’s pitch. “At this critical juncture, you use paper?”)
Ms. Campos would not disclose the number of bidet seats Toto has sold in the United States, but it has sold 17 million over all since introducing the first Washlet in 1980; Toto now sells a million a year in Japan alone. She said sales of the seats increased 35 percent in the United States in the first half of this year, before the Clean Is Happy campaign even began.
Kohler has sold conventional bidets in the United States since 1928. Its marketing for the C3 has been more restrained than Toto’s, and has involved avenues that are unlikely to jar a customer’s sensibilities, like showroom displays and DVDs, said Shane Allis, a product manager for the company. (“Our consumers have been using paper for a very, very long time,” he explained.)
But Kohler, too, feels it is a good time for the seats to take off, for the reasons Ms. Campos gave and because of a growing desire to see bathrooms as spa environments. The C3, he suggested, “offers that luxurious experience that consumers are wanting to have in all areas of their bathrooms.”
There is evidence that Americans have generally become more comfortable with bidets. The National Kitchen and Bath Association kept statistics on bidets for the first time in 2006, and Ed Pell, the group’s manager of market research, said that of the 5.3 million bathrooms built in the United States that year, more than 650,000 included one.
Janice Costa, the editor of Kitchen & Bath Design News, said she started seeing bidet seats at kitchen and bath shows in the last two years. She believes they will catch on within five years as a high-end trend that may eventually broaden. “The toilet is the last bastion that has not been luxurified,” she said. “People are looking to upgrade every aspect of their lives, and the toilet is the last to be touched.”
The bidet seat offers advantages over the traditional bidet, particularly in markets like New York City, where bathrooms do not have the space for an additional fixture. Even when space is not an issue, installing a traditional bidet “can’t be done without going through major renovations,” said David Esbin, the manager of the plumbing and hardware division of Manhattan Center for Kitchen and Bath.
The bidet seat, on the other hand, can be installed without reworking the plumbing (although it does require an electrical outlet, which can cost as much as $500 to install). Toto’s and Kohler’s models cost $700 to $2,200, but those prices are low compared with the cost of a traditional bidet and the contracting work required to install one.
Still, as Ms. Costa pointed out, “you’ve got a general squeamishness” in this country about toilets. Getting other Americans as excited as the Falsettis are about the bidet seat will not be easy in a culture that has long rejected the bidet as odd, unnecessary and somewhat embarrassing.
Harvey Molotch, a
New York University professor of social cultural analysis and the author of the 2003 book “Where Stuff Comes From: How Toasters, Toilets, Cars, Computers and Many Other Things Come to Be as They Are,” has studied the bidet’s difficult journey across the Atlantic.
The fixture, which was invented by French furniture makers in the early 18th century, was rejected by the English, who regarded French imports as tainted with the hedonism and sensuality of that country. That sentiment, rather than the bidet itself, traveled to America, Professor Molotch said. Later, at the turn of the last century, he said, bidets installed in an upscale Manhattan hotel incited public protest, resulting in their removal. And during World War II, the bidet suffered another blow when American soldiers encountered it in European brothels, perpetuating the idea that bidets were somehow associated with immorality.
“Bidets have had such difficulty,” Professor Molotch said. “Even all the power of capitalism can’t break the taboo.”
Arnold Cohen, 66, is familiar with the problem. He invented one of the first bidet seats, the American Bidet Wash ’n Dry, in his Brooklyn home more than 45 years ago. He believes that if his product was placed strategically in restaurants and hotels, people everywhere would want one, and he has dedicated his life to spreading the gospel. The license plate on his Cadillac reads MR BIDET, and his standard greeting is, “Peace and good bidet.” But in more than 45 years in the business, he said, he has sold only 200,000 units.
To help destigmatize the bidet seat, Toto sponsored a Clean Is Happy day in August in Times Square, an event that attracted hundreds of passers-by. Two toilets with bidet seats stood back to back on the traffic island at the intersection of 45th Street and Broadway, and curious pedestrians stopped to watch a demonstration of how the seats’ sensors automatically lift the lids in a welcoming salute.
Some onlookers were enthusiastic. Michael Epp, a 24-year-old actor, said the stream of water might appeal to his 4-year-old daughter, who needed motivation to give up her diaper.
Michael Robles, a 15-year-old skateboarder, recalled the trip to Japan when he first encountered a bidet seat. “It makes you look forward to going to the bathroom,” he said, stuffing a handful of smiley-face Toto pins in his pocket before skating away.
by Mara Altman
