My First Time
I told you there would be a follow up on my “It’s a good bidet to stop buying toilet paper” post with the nitty-gritty of how my first time using the bidet went, and here it is.
There are a few things to keep in mind if you are a bidet newbie like I was. Number one, it is quiet a shock when you first turn it on. The precision (at least with mine) was uncanny. You don’t have to worry about it spraying your thigh or completely missing its mark. It’ll hit where it needs to without adjustment by you.
Second, even with the precision you will need to dry off. There are two options for this. One you can use TP. This may seem counter productive at first but I can guarantee you will need less squares to dry off than you would to do the entire job. Resulting in less toilet paper used and therefore less purchased. If you go with this option I urge you to purchase your TP from a sustainable company like this one. If you want to go full on zero toilet paper then you can use good ol’ fashioned towel. Simply have a stack of squares cut from an old towel beside your toilet and a “waste” bin for them to be placed into after use. This “waste” just gets added to your normal laundry. If this seems gross to you, I get it, but I can first hand say these washcloths are no different than the towel you use to dry off after a shower. Yes, they touched your tush but it was a clean tush and only left water behind.
My third point, you don’t need one that hooks up to your hot water. There are fancy ones out there that can do this but many times there are still stipulations on how your bathroom plumbing needs to be set up in order for them to work. Basically if your toilet isn’t right beside your sink it won’t be able to connect to your hot water. So personally, I recommend skipping this feature. The water that comes out of one without the hot water feature is in no way cold but it isn’t hot either. Frankly I don’t know if I would want hot water shooting up there. I honestly prefer the lukewarm toilet bowl water my bidet uses.
Forth, they are powerful! Prior to my first time I assumed it would be like a shower, a light sprinkle of water. It is more like a power washer. But don’t let this scare you off! You only need to turn it on ever so slightly and you will figure out your ideal pressure with usage. A friend of mine, who will remain nameless for their sake, made the mistake of turning it all the way on for her first time. Apparently, I failed to accurately describe how little you needed to turn the knob and when we heard a shriek we knew it wasn’t going well. There was water all over the floor and the mirror, which was on the wall opposite of the toilet. She came out of the bathroom drenched, but(t) clean.
This leads me to my last point, be prepared to laugh at yourself (and others) during the first use. It takes some getting used to and every bidet is different. Luckily, my friend was a good sport and was laughing just as hard as we were at her plight. Just like with everything in life, there is a learning curve to it. But it will provide you with some good stories, some good laughs, and some good doings for the world at large.
