What is the difference between kitchen rolls and toilet paper?

Time for a tea break. 

You boil the kettle, drop the tea bag in your favourite mug, and start to shake the milk before pouring it in.

But, oh dear, someone didn’t fasten the lid properly, and now there’s a spill to deal with. What’s worse, the last few sheets of kitchen roll have been used.

With the milk spreading to the edge of the kitchen countertop, you ponder the big, convenient box of Naked Paper toilet rolls that have just been delivered.

Can toilet paper be substituted for kitchen roll? What’s the difference between the two anyway?

You’ve come to the right blog.

Why is kitchen roll stronger than toilet paper?

Think of the adverts where a sheet of kitchen roll is soaked, wrung out, and used again. You wouldn’t be able to do the same for toilet paper, even if you wanted to (we’re guessing you wouldn’t).

Kitchen roll is intended for everyday spills, wiping, even a bit of a scrub. Because of this, it’s designed to be much stronger than toilet paper. Where does it get its muscle?

The secret lies in the wet strength additive that is added to kitchen roll.

In the case of bleach-free Naked Paper, this additive is derived from resin. It’s sprayed on the surface of the kitchen roll and it creates a thin layer on top, like a very fine lamination.

This coating means that the structure of the tissue holds together even when the tissue becomes wet. You can soak up your milk spill, wring out the sheet, open it up, and you should find the sheet stays intact without breaking in your hands. 

As a result, kitchen roll can handle spills, wet countertops, greasy plates, and mucky hands and stay in one piece. 

Toilet paper is made with the opposite intention; It’s designed to make sure it does break down. For a flushable product, the last thing you want is for the tissue to stay in one piece after it gets wet. No resin coating here! 

So that’s one way the toilet paper and kitchen rolls are different, but that’s not all that separates the two…

Is kitchen roll more absorbent than toilet paper?

Kitchen roll is more absorbent than toilet paper for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s usually a bit thicker; the sheets aren’t rolled as thin as toilet paper so you end up with a couple more grams of raw materials per square meter. Doesn’t sound like much, but it makes for a sturdier wipe.

But the big difference is in the embossing; the pattern pressed into the paper during production. Ours is a repeating pattern of small diamonds in a lattice, we think it looks particularly good with our bleach-free beige sheets.

Toilet paper is often embossed as well, but kitchen roll embossing tends to be deeper and more textured. This increases the paper’s ability to soak up liquid because there’s more pockets and channels for moisture to move into and be held in.

When we come to emboss our toilet paper we use the same pattern as the kitchen roll, but we press it lightly in comparison. This creates embossing that is shallower and smoother, so out tissue feels softer on sensitive skin.

Can you use toilet paper instead of kitchen roll? Or kitchen roll instead of toilet paper?

In a pinch, toilet paper can substitute for napkins, kitchen roll, and hand towels.

You probably didn’t need us to tell you this, we’ve all been there. 

But you should never use kitchen roll in place of toilet tissue, even if you’re prepared for the fact that it’s not as soft. Kitchen roll is made in large sheets that are specifically designed to hold together, and treated with a resin to make sure that happens. If you flush kitchen roll, it can very easily block your pipes.

And honestly, toilet paper is a poor substitute for its sturdier cousin the kitchen roll. Try cleaning your spilled milk with toilet paper and you’ll see – it’ll start to disintegrate as soon as it touches the spill and you’ll be left with crumbled bits of wet tissue in your hand and on your counter.

Plus, the shallow embossing on toilet paper is designed for softness, not absorbency, so unless you use a lot in one go, you’re more likely to move the spill around than clean it up.

Our customers love both types of bleach-free roll, and often get them in the same convenient next-day delivery. But we’d recommend splitting them up once they get through the front door.

Toilet paper in the toilet, kitchen roll in the kitchen. We guarantee that’s where they’ll do their best work.

Conclusion

Hopefully you’ve cleaned up that spill by now, and learned a few facts along the way.

We love our products, and we love unrolling the ins and outs of how we make them on this blog. If there’s any topics we’ve missed or big tissue issues you’ve pondered, let us know. We’d love to hear from you at hello@nakedpaper.com

Want to put our sturdy kitchen roll or our soft toilet paper to the test?