In the never ending ways that toilet paper manufacturers have found to downsize their products, Kimberly Clark, the maker of Scott Tissue, came up with a new one.
Lauren B., a regular Mouse Print* reader, says she tried Scott’s new tube-free Naturals toilet paper and her whole family swears there is less on each roll.
A quick look at the packages of Naturals with tubes and Naturals without tubes reveals they both have 440 sheets per roll, the sheets are 4.2-inches by 4.0-inches on both, and both packages contain a total of 205.2 square feet of paper. It turns out that Lauren mistakenly thought that all Scott toilet paper had 1000 sheets, irrespective of the variety being sold. But her inquiry raised the question of whether the only difference in the case of Scott Naturals was that one had a tube and one did not.
As it turns out, a little secret was hiding in the fine print.
*MOUSE PRINT:
The tube-free version is only one-ply, and tube version is two. That difference would also suggest that you might have to use more sheets of the single-ply version than the two-ply one.
Easy math on this one. If the tube-free version costs half as much, or less, then it’s a winner. But one-ply? Ouch! Serious question: what is the supposed market appeal of the “tube-free” feature? I realize there are not a whole lot of ways toilet paper can be upgraded. Is this one of them?
The Grocery Shrink Ray (or whatever you want to call it when we’re not talking about things like half-gallon shrinking to 3/8-gallon of ice cream) strikes again.
The 1-ply vs 2-ply is definitely the reason the OP used more of it and consequently ran out of it sooner than previously thought.
Of course, Scott’s no longer advertises their 1,000 sheet rolls as lasting longer since they shrank the length of the sheets. They have also shrunk the width since then. As of now, the 1,000 sheet rolls are 4.1″ long x 3.7″ wide. When you saw the ads with them being unrolled and ending up way longer than their competitors, the sheets were 4.5″ long and 4.0″ wide. Of course the packaging still screams (ok, meekly whispers, ‘1,000 sheets’). 4,500 inches versus 4100 inches now. 375 feet versus 341.66 feet. I’m thinking that the 33 or 34 feet that were hacked out would show up big time if they still ran those ads with the new rolls.
Our arses get bigger and our paper gets smaller. Go figure.
Well the company wanted to go tube free to save on paper, but a lot of people are not happy about it due to all the craft projects you can do with the toilet paper tube.
I had the same problem with White Cloud (Wal-Mart’s brand). I was getting like 420 sheets per roll, a 9 roll package would last 2 weeks. Then all of a sudden that package was no longer carried. I went to Angel Soft and that had 365 sheets per roll. Then Wal-Mart stopped carrying that package. Now I get Angel Soft 12 roll package with just 300 sheets for the same price as the bigger rolls. Everytime I buy toilet paper I check to see how many sheets are on a roll.
Tube-free eliminates trash and the frustration of those like me who recycle the tube, and am fed-up with having to pick off and pick off and pick off the paper that sticks to the glue. An article I read says that most people don’t recycle tubes (which is not good) and hence the trash. I am not a craft-person, so I’d definitely buy tube-less. I am in Oregon, a major recycling state, and I have not seen commercials for Scott’s tube-less, so their test marketing may not have gone well, or it’s just not yet available here. (Was tested in two large retailers in the NE in 2010.)
One way of determining the best deal in paper products whether toilet paper or paper towels is to weigh them. This eliminates calculating for sheet size, sheet amounts,and number and thickness of ply. Additionally it exposes the puffed-up, er…sorry…’quilted’, deception. Plus the look you get from the cashier or butcher when you ask them to weigh them is fun to see.