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The Story of Paper Napkins: the Evolution of Important Consumer Goods

Sep. 07, 2021

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As a tissue folding machine supplier, I'd like to share it with you.

Toilets and facial tissues are things that most of us take for granted, but many people may be surprised to find that they are actually relatively new inventions. However, although the history of paper towels itself can be traced back less than a century, the record of human beings relying on paper for personal cleaning is much longer.

 

The Chinese first developed the pulp and paper process more than 2000 years ago, but they are also considered to be the first to use paper for personal cleaning, which may not be surprising. The first recording date of toilet paper was China in the 6th century. Three hundred years later, in the Tang Dynasty, an Arab traveler in the area commented that the Chinese “have no worries about food and clothing and do not wash with water; but they only wipe their bodies with paper.”

Nevertheless, it will take centuries before the world sees anything similar to toilet paper as we know it today. Over the years, people have switched to other papers. For example, with the rise of the printing industry, many people rely on reused newspapers and books.

The introduction of toilet paper as a commercial product did not appear until 1857. That year, the American inventor Joseph Gayetti began to sell single-sheet paper packaging under the name "Geyetti's medical paper." Others eventually began to produce this brown, rough and thin paper in countries around the world. In fact, many readers may have personal memories of this type of toilet paper, which can still be found in some parts of Europe until the 1970s.

 

Towel Folding Machine

Towel Folding Machine

 

Folding Changes Everything

The first tissue products we know today were invented and produced by American paper manufacturer Kimberly-Clark, who developed cellulose as a substitute for cotton in hygiene products during the First World War. Their main innovation is the creping process, in which the paper is "microfolded" during the production process. This breaks the rigidity of the paper and increases its volume, making it softer and more absorbent than the paper created by Joseph Gayetty 60 years ago.

In 1920, Kimberly-Clark released the world's first commercially available paper towel product-sanitary napkin Kotex. This is thanks to the new creping process and the work of two employees of the company: Frank Sensenbrenner and a young Austrian immigrant named Ernst Mahler. By layering several paper towels, they developed a soft pillow that absorbs much more water than traditional cotton wool. Four years later, Kimberly-Clark followed the success of Kotex and launched the disposable handkerchief Kleenex, which is still the leading brand in the facial tissue market.

 

Customer Experience Drives Development

In the years after the appearance of the creping process, tissue products quickly became popular with consumers, which attracted the attention of many manufacturers. In the first half of the twentieth century, tissue production expanded from the United States to Europe, and eventually to other regions of the world.

During this period, the production of household paper continued to develop in order to keep up with the ever-increasing market demand and provide a better customer experience. As today, manufacturers strive to meet changing consumer tastes, and toilet paper industry trends come and go along with other consumer fashions. An unforgettable example is the soft-colored toilet paper rolls that were popular in the 1960s to match bathroom interiors. To

However, there is always a search for continuous development of production methods that can ensure both strong and soft paper. For toilet paper and facial tissues, strength and absorbency are essential to ensure that the paper can do the intended job while keeping your hands clean and dry. At the same time, it is necessary to avoid causing discomfort in the delicate parts of the body. As the use of paper towels becomes more common-first in the Americas and Europe, and more recently in other parts of the world-consumers are beginning to demand softer and stronger sheets.

YEKON is the one of the biggest factories in the tissue converting machine industrial in China Mainland.

And our main products are Facial tissue and Hand towel tissue converting machine and we also have excellent experience to help customer to build the tissue production line. If you want to learn more about our products, please contact us.

 

 

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