Just because you can use them to wipe yourself doesn’t mean you should.

With Japanese toilets, it’s feast or famine in terms of features. Sure, sometimes you get lucky with a high-tech throne equipped with a heated seat and spray of water to clean your behind after you do your business. At other times, though, all you get is a hole in the floor.

But even without a bidet function, you can keep your backside clean as a whistle by using baby wipes, which are readily available in Japanese drugstores from a variety of manufacturers. However, you’ll want to avoid this particular item when procuring post-poo cleanup supplies.

Yes, Toilet Quickle (written in Japanese text on the package as トイレクイックル) is indeed a brand of pre-moistened towelettes that are meant to be used in the bathroom. And yes, Kao, the company that makes Toilet Quickle, does make baby wipes.

▼ Inside the Toilet Quickle container

However, Kao sells its baby wipes with the product name Merries. Toilet Quickle, on the other hand, is designed not for cleaning the source of your stool, but for the toilet itself. As such, its cleaning agents are harsher than what’s recommended for use on human skin, particularly the delicate tissues of the butthole.

Should you still need more proof that Toilet Quickle is not designed for use on humans, consider the case of our reporter P.K. Sanjun’s dad, Yoshio (not to be confused with his boss, also named Yoshio). P.K.’s dad takes his hygiene very seriously, and since he doesn’t have a bidet-equipped toilet in his home, after dropping a deuce he always gives himself a final wipe with a Toilet Quickle. The result? Severe agitation of his already-existing hemorrhoids.

So remember, if you’re traveling in Japan, Toilet Quickle is not to be used like a baby wipe. What you want instead are sheets labeled “oshiri fuki” (お尻拭き or おしりふき in Japanese), which literally means “bottom wipes.” Keep a pack of those on hand, and you’ll be ready to use Japan’s many non-bidet squat toilets…once you decide which way to face, anyway.

Photos ©SoraNews24
[ Read in Japanese ]