Sustainable toilet paper
Bamboo No. 2 Toilet Paper rolls come individually wrapped in colorful, Instagram-worthy tissue, and the packaging doesn’t use any plastic. But it’s not as soft as our sustainable pick.
Who Gives A Crap Premium Bamboo Toilet Paper also comes individually wrapped in pretty, plastic-free packaging. It is FSC certified. But it’s not as soft as our sustainable pick.
Caboo Bamboo Bath Tissue was polarizing. Some testers thought it was perfectly serviceable, but others found it to be rough and not strong enough.
Tushy’s bamboo toilet paper also comes individually wrapped in pretty, plastic-free packaging, but it is very thin and scratchy.
Reel Tree-Free bamboo toilet paper feels rough compared to other bamboo toilet papers we tried.
PlantPaper bamboo toilet paper is FSC-certified, but it’s also rough and thin, and it ripped too easily.
Who Gives A Crap 100% Recycled Toilet Paper is extremely popular among sustainability-minded butt wipers, and it comes individually wrapped in attractive, plastic-free packaging. But it felt rough to us.
Neither Whole Foods’ 365 Sustainably Soft recycled toilet paper nor its 100% recycled toilet paper felt as strong or as comfortable to use as our picks.
A spokesperson from Seventh Generation told us its Natural Unbleached Bathroom Tissue (also made from recycled paper) had been discontinued.
Traditional toilet paper
Aria Premium Earth Friendly Bath Tissue (currently unavailable) scored very high in comfort among test tushies, but it was expensive and dusty.
Neither Amazon’s Presto! Ultra-Strong nor its thicker three-ply option were worth the additional expense over our budget pick, the same brand’s Ultra-Soft. Both are currently unavailable.
Costco’s Kirkland Signature was the widest toilet paper in our test pool (the rolls often don’t fit on regular holders). But that was the most impressive feature of this otherwise-mediocre paper. It was neither the softest nor the strongest in our testing pool, and it was rather dusty. This was surprising given the longstanding reputation of this toilet paper; diehard Costco toilet paper users on Reddit theorize that pandemic-related supply-chain issues have caused the company’s bath tissues to devolve.
Charmin Essentials Strong and Charmin Essentials Soft felt scratchy and seemed to require a lot more paper to finish the task than our picks.
When directly compared with our top picks, Charmin Ultra Soft, Quilted Northern Ultra Soft & Strong, and Quilted Northern Ultra Plush were not ultra-soft, ultra-plush, or ultra-anything to our testers.
Charmin Ultra Gentle and Scott ComfortPlus were linty and ripped too easily.
Scott 1000 was translucent and easily ripped.
Great Value’s Soft & Strong, Walmart’s Cascades, Cottonelle Ultra CleanCare, Virtue, and Angel Soft were not as soft or sturdy as our picks.
Amazon Solimo, Kirkland Signature Ultra Soft, Scott Extra Soft, Scott Naturals Tube-Free, and White Cloud Ultra Strong & Soft were tested (and dismissed) in an earlier round of testing. They have since been discontinued.
Kevin Purdy contributed reporting. This guide was edited by Ellen Lee and Kalee Thompson.
