Japan's luckiest lavatories have received a government award for their spotless appearance in a hard-fought contest among the nation's prettiest and most practical loos.
A panel including architects and an official from the Japan Toilet Association sifted through nearly 400 applications before settling on two dozen municipalities and companies with the loveliest latrines.
The criteria for the inaugural award were cleanliness, safety, comfortableness, novelty/creativity, and sustainability.
The range of winners included firms that created makeshift toilets after Japan's 2011 quake-tsunami disaster, Haneda airport for its spotless restrooms, and the organisers of a toilet-themed art festival.
Others got the nod for making female restrooms more attractive, including supplying space for breast-feeding and shortening waiting lines.
Toilets in Japan have been raised to something of an art and foreign visitors are regularly wowed by their seat warmers and pinpoint bidet jets.
But the government insists the award was more than just a beauty contest—it was about empowering women.
"Pleasant restrooms will improve the quality of daily life and encourage women's empowerment," Haruko Arimura, minister in charge of women's empowerment, told an awards ceremony on Friday.
"Having public toilets where women feel safe is a sign of the maturity and richness of a society."
That idea was panned on social media.
"I cannot believe the government has created the toilet award. Are restrooms the reason why Japanese women cannot shine?" said one Twitter user.
Another added: "The government is missing the point. They should work more on issues such as the lack of child care facilities."
What’s to be said for a guy whose first Kickstarter investment is a color-changing toilet nightlight? That he has an aim problem? An interest in a mid-stream dance party? Yes, I helped fund the Illumibowl, and I’m not sorry.
The Illumibowl is a motion-activated, color-changing toilet nightlight. Okay, it’s a novelty, but let’s be real: Who wouldn’t want a glowing disco nightlight inside his or her toilet?
Post-Kickstarter success, the creators of the Illumibowl spent nearly a year developing this finely China-manufactured plastic gadget, and I often despaired of ever receiving mine due to all the problems they encountered along the way. But this summer, lo and behold, my fellow backers and I were finally sent the finished product.
My verdict? This is the best $15 ever spent on a silly bathroom gadget, Kickstarter or otherwise.
Design
The Illumibowl comes in a box half the size of a deck of cards. I received three to use, review, and give to friends. It’s a remarkably simple design—basically just a small white plastic box with a battery compartment (3 AAA batteries not included), a rounded motion detector, and some suction cups around back.
The left side of the plastic housing has one small, clickable button which lets you select which color you want. Until you press it, the Illumibowl will cycle through eight different colors. They’re beautiful and magnificently weird to watch.
The fancy color-changing light is a 5mm LED capable of lasting 100,000 hours of use, theoretically offering years of mild entertainment. It’s attached to the top of the device by a flat, flexible cable that has roughly 2-3” of slack. This allows you to wrap the cord over the top of your toilet bowl. In addition, there’s a plastic clip to hold any additional cable length you don’t want.
The Illumibowl easily sticks to your porcelain throne thanks to four tiny suction cups on the back of the plastic housing. On the end of the LED cord, another suction cup can be found for placement inside the rim of your toilet. Gross? Indeed—so don’t forget to clean first.
Using It
Step 1. For a proper Illumibowl test, I suggest staggering into your bathroom at 3 am during a house party feeling approximately twice as bad as after your last wedding reception. For best results, quickly collapse to your knees. If this doesn’t trigger the motion sensor, I’m not sure what will. Use the newfound light to find the toilet bowl.
Step 2: Straddling your porcelain totem, watch and wait until the Illumibowl light switches to bright green, a color so neon it resembles toxic waste. By now, The Weeknd’s summer hit Can’t Feel My Face should be playing in the background.
Step 3: Expel the tempest in your stomach and enjoy the calming (yet eerie) mood lighting and ambient party noise, all while you relive your regretful moments from the past six hours.
Step 4: Flush and pass out. Illumibowl’s potty aurora borealis will shut off by itself.
Verdict
Joking aside, this product does pretty much exactly what I wanted it to do. It guides me to a toilet without blinding me in the middle of the night. It gives everyone mild amusement during the most basic of human bodily functions. And, as you can see in my demonstration below (it’s water, people), it also helps you aim.
As you might expect, there are a few glitches. Of the three models I received, one had molded plastic blocking the clickable button, which required some screwdriver whittling to solve. And after I set the Illumibowl to my favorite color—teal—I had to wait an entire motion-sensor-refresh to get the colors to cycle once more.
Minor inconveniences like these are a small price to pay for the promise of disco toilet nightlight for years to come.
Have you ever wondered, what is the right way to put on a toilet seat liner?
It is believed that toilet seat liners are there just for comfort rather than disease protection.
Either way, it hasn’t stopped people from using them.
Well, a mom blogger in Temecula, Calif., that goes by Haute Granola Mom, probably nailed it on how to “properly” use a toilet seat liner and it has been shared more than 80,000 times on social media.
Haute Granola Mom, who does not want to reveal her name just yet, started blogging in 2010, but did not officially launch her Facebook page until this year.
“One of the main parts of being a Haute Granola Mom is balance, all my friends and family know I love to laugh and definitely don’t take life too serious,” Haute Granola Mom said.
It never occurred to her that a simple toilet seat liner would give her blog and Facebook page the attention she has received.
“It’s still pretty surreal and the numbers keep climbing,” she said.
During a night out with her friends, she went to use a public restroom at a local winery and became frustrated with the toilet seat liner getting sucked into the toilet.
Eventually, her friend came to the rescue and showed her an alternative way. The picture definitely has a lot of people talking on social media.
“I’m definitely a germaphobe, so this literally changed the game for me. My mind was officially blown away and I had to take a picture,” said Haute Granola Mom.
It’s a picture that almost anyone can relate to.
In the end, what way do you believe is the right way?
On windy days the water in our toilet bowl rolls back and forth; the more wind, the more motion in the water. I could understand this if I was on a ship or at the top of the Empire State Building, but we are talking about a toilet that is bolted to a concrete slab. The same thing happened when we lived in Oklahoma. What's going on?
I know, I know, ask me. It is the effect of winds passing over the vents on your roof and changing the pressure in your pipes.
It is officially known as Bernoulli's Principle, after the 18th-century Swiss mathematician and physicists who first figured it out.
According to scienceclarified.com, Bernoulli's Principle "holds that for fluids in an ideal state, pressure and density are inversely related: in other words, a slow-moving fluid exerts more pressure than a fast-moving fluid.
"Since 'fluid' in this context applies equally to liquids and gases, the principle has as many applications with regard to airflow as to the flow of liquids. One of the most dramatic everyday examples of Bernoulli's principle can be found in the airplane, which stays aloft due to pressure differences on the surface of its wing; but the truth of the principle is also illustrated in something as mundane as a shower curtain that billows inward."
A few years ago, we ran a column on choosing a new toilet. This article is an updated one, as so many people ask the question: Which one do I buy?
Replacing a toilet is a fairly simple job. The harder part is deciding which model to install.
There are many different choices, but basically, they are all installed in the same way. Most toilets come in two pieces, the bowl and the tank. They are usually bought separately, but you have to be sure to choose two that are designed to fit together (both being made by the same company). Today however, some manufacturers provide the complete kit in one box, to include the tank, bowl and even a wax ring and toilet seat. Another type of toilet is the “one-piece” toilet. The “one-piece” toilets are more expensive, slightly harder to install due to the weight, and the repair parts for these toilets are more expensive than the two-piece toilet.
You’ll need to decide on your color and also whether to get a round or elongated bowl. The round bowl is usually best for a small bathroom, where space is critical. An elongated bowl allows for more sitting room and comfort. Installation procedures are the same, so simply look at the two styles and decide which is best for you.
Another option to consider is purchasing a “comfort-height” toilet. This is a toilet that sits up slightly higher, about 2 inches. This is ideal for a taller person, someone with bad knees or someone who has trouble getting up and down. While 2 inches doesn’t sound like much, you will be amazed by the difference. More and more sales are in this comfort height category.
Some stores have designed a “Flush Performance” rating. This rating takes into account the outlet size at the bottom of the toilet, the flush valve size and other items, which are then factored into a rating system that will let you compare the efficiency of each toilet you’re considering.
All toilets purchased today will conform to a law passed in 1994, which states that no more than 1.6 gallons of water per flush will be used. Some toilets may even use less. For a few years after this law was passed, there were complaints that the water saver toilets didn’t do such a good job of disposing of the waste, requiring a second flush. This has changed quite a lot, as the newer toilets have been modified and do a great job. I am continually amazed by an American Standard Cadet toilet we have as to how quickly the flush occurs.
The last note to think about is the “footprint” of the old and the new toilet. If you have a tiled floor, the tile should cover the floor completely under the toilet. However, if by chance you have carpeting, the carpeting may only go up to the base of the toilet, and not underneath it. When you go to install the new toilet, you may have flooring exposed.
As to prices, toilets can vary quite a bit. I usually like to stay with a brand name that I’m familiar with, such as American Standard, Kohler, etc. Most toilets will be in the $200 to $400 range – just keep in mind that basically a toilet is a toilet.
There's really no other way to describe them: The toilets of Japan are fabulous.
"Let's say you don't want to lift up the lid yourself because it's dirty," explains translator Kaede Kawauchi. "Then you can just use the remote control to press a button, and then it just kind of lifts up."
In Japan, toilets come with remote controls.
Toto has customers work with "advisers" to help figure out which product is right for them. (Sally Herships/Marketplace)
And at the Tokyo showroom of Toto, one of Japan's largest toilet manufacturers, you can have your pick. If Apple built a toilet store, this is what it might look like — white and shiny, but cleaner. Nariko Yamashita, who works in public relations for Toto, explains a complex looking remote control — one with 22 buttons.
Sally Herships
She presses one, and a tube appears from under the seat spraying water. Not only do these toilets have built-in bidets, you can also, says Yamashita, adjust the water temperature, get a water massage, or choose a specific flushing option depending on how much toilet paper you require.
But most U.S. consumers haven't been to Japan and don't know there's a whole wide high-tech toilet world out there. It's something that has to be tried to be really appreciated, says Bill Strang, president of operations for Toto in the Americas.
So why haven't high-tech commodes taken off in the U.S. yet? In Japan, Toto had a big leg up, Strangsays. The Japanese love having options, and Toto's Washlet is probably the best known model. It's a toilet seat with features like a drier for your nether regions and the option to play sounds in case you need some sonic camouflage for your toileting activities.
Sally Herships
The average price for a Washlet is around $600, but you still need a toilet and a tank. In Japan you can end up spending as much as $2,700 on your toilet, and spend consumers do. Since Toto launched the Washlet in 1980, the company has sold 36 million units. Yamashita says 76 percent of Japanese households own one.
Even before the company went high tech, it already was in the business of making toilets, so consumers were familiar with the brand.
"I can tell you how this Washlet will work," Strang says. "I can tell you about the spray wand and how it's going to use a warm water wash to clean you off, and how it will oscillate and pulsate, and how if it doesn't hit the right spot you can move it around and get it to hit the right spot with that spray rinse.... I often say that I can tell you about the Washlet, but until you can actually test drive it and understand that experience, you will then be able to say in your heart what it really brings to you in way of value," he says.
Strang says Toto's U.S. sales are increasing by 20 percent a year, so it's possible his pitch is working and that American consumers are now more carefully considering their commodes.
