European toilet facts to celebrate our EU launch

Naked Paper started in the UK in 2020. Our first orders were shipped from our warehouse on the South Coast of England, and today we send out hundreds of boxes of soft tissue products everyday from our hub in the Midlands. 

Ever since those first orders, we’ve received a steady stream of emails from people outside the UK who have heard about our simple bleach-free products, and want to know if they can try them in their own homes. As of January 2025 the answer, a lot of the time, is “yes.”

We’ve launched across the EU, with free shipping to France, Germany, Ireland, Belguim, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. You can see our European site here! 

As we bring our soft brown tissue products to more countries, we thought we’d celebrate with a closer look at some of the continent’s distinctive bathroom habits. From pink toilet paper in France to Dutch birthday calendars in the loo, here are a few of our favourite toilet-related facts from some of the new countries where we’re rolling out. 

Pink coloured toilet paper in France

Multi coloured toilet paper has mostly disappeared from UK shops over the last few years, but coloured toilet paper is a fairly common sight in France. And not just any colour, pink. You’ll spot pink toilet paper hanging in homes and sold in large packs in French supermarkets.

The reason for the specific colour is often debated - we think it might be partly because red dye is relatively cheap and simple to produce and a small amount of it will turn bleached material pink. Either way these pink rolls are special to us, because they provided the spark that started Naked Paper. 

In 2019 our founders Leila and Tom were on holiday in France and couldn’t help but notice all the pink rolls in different guest houses, all over the country. The coincidence made them laugh and it got them thinking. They thought pink rolls seemed silly, but bleached white isn't any more natural than dyed pink. Why bother changing the colour of toilet paper at all? 

The answer - as it turns out - is that there's no real reason to bleach toilet paper at all. And that’s where Naked Paper began. No bleach, no unnecessary packaging, no plastic. So merci beaucoup to the pink rolls of France, because without them we wouldn’t be here.

Off to "the jacks" in Ireland

If you’re in Ireland and someone says they’re off to “the jacks”, they’re not meeting a friend, they’re heading to the loo.

While no one knows for certain where the phrase came from, one theory is that it’s derived from the older term “Jake’s”, or “Jake’s house” which was a term used for outhouse. It’s likely there wasn’t an actual Jake; the name “Jake” was very common in the 16th century, when the phrase was first recorded. So saying you were going to visit Jake’s house would have worked as a simple polite euphemism like saying you were “off to see a man about a dog.” 
 
Another theory for the term “jacks” suggests it may come from the name Jack Power, supposedly the inventor of a multi-cubicle toilet, but we haven’t found much evidence for this one. Whatever the origin, the phrase is commonly used across Ireland today. 

The famous German toilet shelf

Germany’s traditional toilet design often catches people off guard. Instead of the usual sloped bowl, many older German loos have a flat shelf just above the water-line. The idea behind this “Flachspüler” (flat flusher) is that it allows people to inspect their waste before flushing. 

This is handy from a public health point of view and it was particularly helpful in the days when parasites were more common. But nowadays the design can be a little confronting to those of us who aren’t used to it.

Flat flushers are less common these days; many German households have moved on to the same sloping designs you’d see in the UK. But the shelf loo is still out there in toilets across homes and businesses in Germany, and we’re pleased to be offering a toilet paper that’s as straightforward and no-nonsense as the engineering.

Birthday calendars in Dutch WCs

Our final little cultural discovery is the Dutch tradition of keeping birthday calendars in the bathroom, normally on the back of the door of the downstairs toilet. Known as a verjaardagskalender, they’re designed to remind you of birthdays and other important dates every year.

But why hang them in the loo? Simple; it’s a place in the house you’ll visit every day, without fail. This is probably our favourite of the facts; proof that even the most mundane and functional parts of everyday life can provide opportunities to remember the relationships and people we care about. We’re never truly alone, even in the WC!

The universal language of good toilet paper

Whether you call it the toilet, the loo, the WC or the jacks; whether you’re met with a flat flusher, pink tissue, or a calendar, toilet paper is a daily fact of life in houses all over Europe. It’s high time this simple daily product was made more sustainably, with less fuss. 

So hi, hello, hallo and bonjour. Whatever the language, we like to think our bleach free beige products can speak for themselves. And wherever your toilet, thank you for having us.

Want to try our simple, soft, tissue products?