Are you flushing logs down the toilet?

We talk a lot about how our soft toilet paper starts life; as bamboo grown in massive, natural, pesticide-free forests, or recycled packing boxes and paper collected from the area around our factory. 

We also talk a lot about how our rolls finish, as bleach-free, PFAS-free, rolls of softness that are ready to grace the homes and workplaces of our wonderful thoughtful customers. 

Today though, we’re looking at the half-way stage, the loo roll log.

It’s not the raw materials, but it’s not quite the finished article either. At the log stage we take newly-formed reels of tissue and add thickness, softness, and a lot of care. 

So, what exactly is a toilet paper log?

Do you use trees to make toilet paper?

Let’s start with what we don’t mean when we talk about logs. Naked Paper is not made from trees. Our toilet paper, our kitchen rolls, and our tissues are all tree-free, made from locally-sourced recycled card and paper, or FSC-certified bamboo. 

A toilet paper log is a stage of manufacture.

Imagine a roll of toilet paper stretched out to nearly 3 metres long, wound tightly around a cardboard core. That’s a log. In fact, you don’t need to imagine it, here’s a picture of our founder Tom holding one of our logs to demonstrate! 

When we make tissue we start with huge sheets of dried pulp, which are wound into huge “parent reels.” We’ve talked about parent reels before, they’re jumbo-sized, unperforated, single-ply rolls of tissue that can weigh up to 1.5 tonnes. 

Logs are made by unwinding the thin sheets from the large parent reels, embossing and combining them, and then rewinding it again onto long tubes. These are later sliced into individual toilet rolls.

Why not skip this step?

We’re all about cutting out unnecessary stages and unnecessary waste at Naked Paper. We make our rolls without bleaching, without fossil-fuel powered furnaces, and without extra wrapping and plastic. 

Why not skip the log stage too? Why don’t we just wind the parent rolls straight onto our cardboard cores, chop them down, and call it a day? 

The answer lies in everything that needs to happen to convert the simple thin tissue of parent reels into our plush Naked Paper. During the log stage we plump up and emboss our tissue so it’s ready to roll into your home. Here’s an overview of the process: 

🌀🌀Double trouble: We start with two hefty parent rolls. These are unwound and combined in perfect sync so that your finished toilet paper has two plies. 

🌲Bonded together, naturally: As the plies are combined we apply a very thin layer of vegan adhesive made from pine resin. This is what keeps the plies together when you’re using the rolls at home. It’s strong enough to hold, but safe for you and your plumbing.

✨Softness through structure: The combined tissue is passed through an embossing roller, which presses a diamond-shaped pattern into the surface. This strengthens the bond between the freshly-glued plies, and adds tiny pockets of air that make the tissue softer and more absorbent.

✂️Practical perforations: Before we wind the paper into logs, we cut perforations at our standard sheet length of 115mm. 

Once these steps are complete does the paper get wound onto our lovely recycled cardboard cores to form a log. 

At that point, it’s fully treated: strong, soft, two-ply, perforated, and ready to take its final form

The finishing touches

When a log reaches the correct size, we seal the end with a slightly thicker layer of the same vegan adhesive. You’ll notice this line of adhesive when you start a new roll at home; it keeps everything tidy before the roll is ready to be used. 

Once the end is safely secured the log goes to a high-speed saw. It’s sliced cleanly and evenly into individual toilet rolls with minimal waste and consistent quality across each one.

Here’s a gif we made of the saw at work; satisfying isn’t it? 

The rolls that are cut at the centre of the logs should come out neat and ready to box, but the ends can get a bit scuffed while the logs are going through production. To keep things clean, we trim off any scuffed edges. 

These trimmed-off ends of rolls – which we call ‘Hobbit rolls’ – are collected together to go into the mix for our recycled rolls. That way nothing is wasted.

From log to loo

That’s the full story of the middle part of the toilet paper life cycle. The log stage plays an essential role in making your essential rolls; adding structure, softness, and practicality to every box of Naked Paper.  

All of our products are made in-house; from pulp, to log, to plush tissue. Keeping the process under one roof means we can reduce our emissions, cut down on waste, and maintain quality control from start to finish.

It also means we know exactly what goes into our products; a level of attention to detail that means our rolls have been independently found to be PFAS-free and BPA-free, made without compromising on bleach, plastic, or extra dyes and wrapping. 

The toilet paper log is just part of what makes our rolls what they are; simple, no-fuss, products, made with pride. 

Fancy trying them for yourself?