Return of the blooper rolls!

At Naked Paper, we love talking about our wonderfully soft toilet paper, kitchen rolls, and tissues, and we love to talk about the finely-tuned, sustainable processes that go into making them. 

But last year, we took a break from tooting our own horn to pull back the curtain on something a bit messier: our bloopers.

These are the short rolls. The ones with misshapen edges. The typo celebrating “Britiains’s most sustainable tissue” that somehow snuck past Tom and made it onto our packaging (yes, we’re still teasing him). 

And to our surprise – but not really – our wonderful customers loved it. You laughed, empathised, some of you even asked if we could send you some of our stumpy “hobbit rolls” for craft projects.

Well, here we are again. 

It’s 2025. We’ve refreshed our look, tweaked our processes, even changed our name. But one thing hasn’t changed. Even with the most thoughtful design, five generations of expertise at our wonderful factory, and quality control at every step of the way, the manufacturing process can still throw up the occasional surprise.

So in the spirit of human endeavour, and human error, we thought we’d share some fresh bloopers with you.

Blooper one: The mystery of the missing perforations

When it comes to kitchen roll, we’ve got our sizing down to a fine art. Each sheet unrolls to 240mm – big enough for spills, not so big you feel wasteful. But in a few boxes sent out last December, something was… off.

All seemed normal when the rolls came out of the box. But when customers tried tearing off a sheet, they found the process could be unpredictable. Some sheets were 240mm long, some were 480mm, some seemed to go on forever. 

So what happened?

Our perforations are made by precision cutting blades that need to hit the paper at just the right depth so that the tissue is tearable, but not sliced all the way through. Different tissue types require different blade settings. In this case, the blade on the kitchen roll machine had been nudged ever so slightly out of position during setup – a miniscule height difference that meant the blades missed the mark some of the time.

As a result, some rolls ended up with partial or missing perforations and sheets that tore at different lengths. 

If you received one of these elusive and unpredictable rolls, we’re genuinely sorry. We’re all for mystery, but nobody wants to be playing guessing games when there’s a spill to clear up.

Blooper two: The case of the colourful speckles

We love that our recycled rolls come with natural colour variation. Since we don’t bleach or dye them, their tone can shift subtly depending on the locally-sourced cardboard and packaging we use. But the basic colour will always be brown. 

Or at least, it should always be brown. 

This summer some customers have noticed something a bit more colourful popping up in their recycled toilet rolls. Tiny specks of blue, red, green, you name it, scattered like confetti across our sheets. 

Surprising? Yes. Harmful? Not at all. But it wasn’t quite what we’d intended.

Here’s why it happened.

We’ve been trialling a new paper pulping system – one that can handle a broader mix of recycled materials: fruit and veg boxes, old documents, even paperback books. These materials vary in thickness, colours, and ink types, so we’ve been testing new de-inking and filtering techniques to keep everything consistent.

During the trials, some of the newer materials didn’t break down as fully as we expected. That meant a few tiny flecks of colourful paper and card were still visible in the final product. The rolls were still soft, safe, and fully flushable – but not as uniform in colour as we’d like.

We tweaked our processes and the sprinkly look has disappeared - bringing us back to a reassuringly uniform brown.

Blooper three: The jaggedy edge

Finally, one for modern art lovers. From time to time we receive pictures of rolls of toilet paper, or kitchen rolls, with sheets that are much larger than they should be. These sheets have edges that look a bit more… conceptual than the standard, featuring points and peaks rather than a uniform line. 

So what’s going on?

During the winding stage (when tissue is rolled onto the core), the paper occasionally folds or crinkles. Then, when the sheets are cut, the blades slice through the bunched-up area at a weird angle, creating sheets that unfold to a larger size with what we will very technically term a “jaggedy edge.” Think of the way you cut the edges of folded paper to make snowflakes, it’s a similar effect. 

This blooper is rare and purely cosmetic. The wonky sheets function just the same as their rectangular cousins, they’re just offering a bit more geometry than you’d expect. 

Adjustments at the factory should mean that rolls wind more smoothly, quite literally, onto the core in future, but the nature of paper is to fold, so we wouldn’t be amazed if we see the odd jaggedy edge in future. 

Like a super blooper 

We’re proud of what we make at Naked Paper. Every batch and every sheet is part of the task of making sustainable tissue that’s kinder to the planet and great for your home.

We’re proud to share our missteps. Because if there’s one thing bloopers do well, it’s shine a light on where we can improve. Even with quality control procedures and careful oversight sometimes the odd thing slips through the net. 

We’re proud to reuse our factory offcuts and seconds by turning them into new recycled rolls, or donating usable rolls through our partnerships with the Trussell Trust and other UK food banks.

Will there be more bloopers in future? Probably yes, Naked Paper is made by human beings after all. And if you ever spot something odd - whether it’s a colourful speckle, an odd-shaped sheet, or a perforation that’s gone walkabout, just get in touch. We’ll put it right. 

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