Ed note: Given the personal hygiene problems as we age, I have to wonder why these toilets aren’t universal. We’ve had one for 15 years. In fact we carried this removable bidet/seat combo to Skyline and purchased a second one for the guest bathroom. The Toto seats require a new electrical outlet near the toilets, but the installation of the Washlets was quick and easy (with a little help from maintenance). Prediction: Toto is setting a new standard for personal hygiene and we’re on the way to learning from Japan, one of the cleanest countries in the world.
By River Akira Davis and Kiuko Notoya in the NYT
In 1982, a peculiar commercial aired on televisions across Japan.
An actress in a pink floral dress and an updo drops paint on her hand and futilely attempts to wipe it off with toilet paper. She looks into the camera and asks: “Everyone, if your hands get dirty, you wash them, right?”
“It’s the same for your bottom,” she continues. “Bottoms deserve to be washed, too.”
The commercial was advertising the Washlet, a new type of toilet seat with a then-unheard-of function: a small wand that extended from the back of the rim and sprayed water up. After its release, Toto, the Washlet’s maker, was deluged with calls and letters from viewers shocked by the concept. They were also angry that it was broadcast during evening prime time, when many were sitting down for dinner.
Four decades later, Japan has overwhelmingly accepted Toto’s innovation. Washlet-style bidets, sold by Toto and a few smaller rivals, are a common feature in Japan’s offices and public restrooms and account for more than 80 percent of all household toilets, according to government surveys.
Toto now sees a similar shift emerging in the United States.
After decades of trying to persuade leery American consumers of the merits of bidets, Toto Washlets have become something of a social phenomenon — popping up on social media tours of five-star hotels and celebrity homes. The comedian Ali Wong devoted a segment of her 2024 Netflix special to Toto’s “magical Japanese toilet.” In 2022, the rapper Drake gifted four Totos to the artist DJ Khaled.
An industry report last year showed that more than two in five renovating homeowners in the United States are choosing to install toilets with specialty features, including bidet toilet seats. Toto’s profits in its Americas housing equipment business have grown more than eightfold over the past five years — and the company has its sights on expanding even more.
“I could have never imagined how popular Washlets would become overseas,” said Shinya Tamura, a former Washlet engineer who was recently appointed Toto’s president. But as was the case with Washlets in Japan, “once the fire is lit, they tend to hit a J curve,” he said.
Toto was founded in 1917 in Kitakyushu, an industrial port city at the tip of Japan’s southernmost main island. Like many Japanese companies, Toto excelled at adopting and refining overseas technologies, such as Western-style seated flush toilets, for the Japanese market.
In the 1960s, Toto noticed a little-known bidet-like device being used in the medical industry in the United States. It began redeveloping the device in Japan, enlisting more than 300 employees to test and optimize aspects like the water stream’s flow, angle and temperature.
The Toto Washlet first appeared in 1980. At the time, the product had three primary functions: washing, drying and a heated seat. It was expensive, costing the equivalent of about $2,000 in today’s currency, and early models were known to sometimes spray inspectors in the face.
The Japanese public was slow to warm to the devices. It took Toto 18 years to sell its first 10 million Washlets. But Toto added features — deodorizing in 1992 and automatic flushing and lid opening in 2003 — and sales picked up. (continued)