They panic-bought bidets during the pandemic. It changed their lives.

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Four years after the toilet paper shortage of 2020, bidet converts say they’re never going back

While the toilet paper shortages that hit the United States during pandemic lockdowns in the spring of 2020 ultimately eased up, they’ve had a lasting impact on one industry: the bidet business.

“The industry here in the U.S. just blew up. You couldn’t get a bidet if you wanted to,” says James Lin, founder of BidetKing.com, an online marketplace for all varieties of the bathroom appliance. “We all sold out. … There was a huge scramble to get more.”

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I've had a bidet for years, before covid even. It really is a game changer. You'd be surprised how much more clean you feel.

They have relatively cheap and easy to install ones that just go under your toilet seat and connect to the toilet's water supply. That's what I use.

Is it not chilly as fuck during the winter, when tap water is like 4°c?

It's not nearly as bad as I'd expected. You're only doing short bursts of water, so you're not getting brain freeze on your butthole or anything.

The little bit of water needed is usually already in the house and relatively heated by ambient warming. Its enough.

Can be. But really adds another wakeup jolt to the morning coffee ritual XD

It's definitely not bad at all. My wife resisted to getting a bidet for years but then we got one and now she can't live without.

Many pre-heat the water. I have one lux one that has a heated seat, heated water, and a warm air blow-dryer. $300? $600? I don't remember, I've had it for a decade; it was cheap at whatever price and 100% worth the investment.

I wish the dryers were better. The rest of the features are sick.

Yeah, I think it's just physics. You'd need the equivalent of a bathroom hand dryer on the toilet to improve the drying. Or, god forbid, a Dyson. I shudder at the thought.

Oh gawd. Like the inverse of one of those clit-succ devices. I’ll stick with my two slices of TP, thank you.

No, its not bad at all and our cold water is usually in 50s Fahrenheit in the winter.

This isn't as bad as you might think it would be.

Yes, definitely. But it's like jumping into a chilly lake: you might not want to stay there long, but god damn is it refreshing.

Nope. Many are plugged in and it will keep the seat and water warm. It further warms the seat when it detects someone is sitting on it. Kinda depends on budget, features, manufacturers.

NGL, middle of the night visits are still a bit jarring because the heating logic tries to conserve energy at night so it tends to me room temperature. But whatevs.

Honestly, worth it. Absolutely no regrets other than maybe not spending more 😂. At a couple hundred dollar Costco Toto model, it was already a risky purchase that at the time I simply wasn't sure about. But yeah, it's awesome 😎.

It's a dollar more to install the ones onto the hot and cold taps, then you can set and forget the temp of the water, so it's always the right temp.

And obviously they have the tech on-demand heated ones, but you can buy the sprayer and taps version for 15 bucks with stainless steel parts.

I'm lazy so I use the kind you can screw directly into the sink tap itself, find the right temp in the regular sink faucet handle, set and forget.

30 second installation, adjustable water temp, switch adjustable nozzle to use bidet or sink faucet, easy.

I just went with the basic cold water ones because I don't have a hot water tap at my toilet and didn't want to go through the trouble of installing hot water due to finished walls.

Probably why my mother-in-law doesn't have a bidet, no hot water. Yes, I offered to buy her a water heater and pay for it to be installed she turned it down

That would make it tough in colder climates, but still worth it for 6 months out of the year, in my opinion.

It's just such an obvious equation to me now haha, like do you want to touch any of that?

No, I don't want to touch any of that and I want to be perfectly clean.

Okay then there's this option that saves on toilet paper, feels better for your skin and is far more hygienic.

There's just no comparison, although I perfectly understand how conservative and resistant to change people can be.

I worked with some old folks once and there was this old man who refused to buy a mouse for his laptop cuz he was like look this is the trackpad. I don't need a mouse, that's just newfangled b*******.

She lives in a part of the world where you can die from the heat 12 months of the year.

Whatever, I tried. Pretty much every year I can get her to accept at most one improvement to her situation. Last year I got her to let me and some workers I hired to clean up her backyard. So at least she some nice plants to look at instead of a motorcycle parts graveyard.

There you go, take the wins where you can

We had ours during the pandemic. While my friends and coworkers griped about toilet paper shortages, it was like having a hidden superpower.

Mine, sadly, doesn't hit me in the right spots and I constantly have to move around the seat. Then my undercarriage is wet and takes time drying.

Same, but that’s an installation error. If yours isn’t absolute ass, it’s adjustable.

Mine is, I’ve just been too lazy for two years to fix it. I should do that.

I have the cheapest of the cheap lol. It has an adjuster that doesn’t work. Need to invest into something better.

Ahhh that makes sense then. Mine was like 70USD and goes back and forward, but I’ve got it too far back. The vaj wash hits my bum so I gotta lean REEEEALLLY FAR forward to clean everything off. I could fix it but like… ehhhh… lazy.

You’ve just convinced me to try again!

Ughhhhh maybe I will too then. I even have another toilet seat for it but when I got it, it seemed too complicated to install. I should like… do that.

I have one that has its own seat lid. The one my son has is the type you mentioned that just slips under the standard seat.