A towel is a piece of absorbent cloth or paper used for drying or wiping a surface. Towels draw moisture through direct contact.
The Scott Paper Company was the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of sanitary tissue products with operations in 22 countries. Its products were sold under a variety of well-known brand names, including Scott Tissue, Cottonelle, Baby Fresh, Scottex and Viva. Consolidated sales of its consumer and commercial products totalled approximately $3.6 billion in 1994.
A bathroom, restroom or washroom is a room, typically in a home or other residential building, that contains either a bathtub or a shower. The inclusion of a wash basin is common. In parts of the world e.g. India, a toilet is typically included in the bathroom; in others, the toilet is typically given a dedicated room separate from the one allocated for personal hygiene activities. In the United States, the word 'bathroom' is often used to refer to any room that contains a toilet, regardless of the inclusion of a bath or shower.
Waiting staff (BrE), waiters / waitresses, or servers (AmE) are those who work at a restaurant, a diner, or a bar and sometimes in private homes, attending to customers by supplying them with food and drink as requested. Waiting staff follow rules and guidelines determined by the manager. Waiting staff carry out many different tasks, such as taking orders, food-running, polishing dishes and silverware, helping bus tables, entertaining patrons, restocking working stations with needed supplies, and handing out the bill.
A paper towel is an absorbent, disposable towel made from paper. In Britain, paper towels for kitchen use are also known as kitchen rolls, kitchen paper, or kitchen towels. For home use, paper towels are usually sold in a roll of perforated sheets, but some are sold in stacks of pre-cut and pre-folded layers for use in paper-towel dispensers. Unlike cloth towels, paper towels are disposable and intended to be used only once. Paper towels absorb water because they are loosely woven, which enables water to travel between the fibers, even against gravity. They have similar purposes to conventional towels, such as drying hands, wiping windows and other surfaces, dusting, and cleaning up spills. Paper towel dispensers are commonly used in toilet facilities shared by many people, as they are often considered more hygienic than hot-air hand dryers or shared cloth towels.
A changing room, locker room, or changeroom is a room or area designated for changing one's clothes. Changing-rooms are provided in a semi-public situation to enable people to change clothes with varying degrees of privacy.
Toilets in Japan are sometimes designed more elaborately than toilets commonly seen in other developed nations. European toilets occasionally have a separate bidet whilst Japan combines an electronic bidet with the toilet. The current state of the art for Western-style toilets in Japan is the bidet toilet, which as of March 2016 is installed in 81% of Japanese households. In Japan, these bidets are commonly called washlets, a brand name of Toto Ltd., and they may include many advanced features rarely seen outside of Asia. The basic feature set commonly found on washlets consists of anal hygiene, bidet washing, seat warming, and deodorization.
A public toilet, restroom, public bathroom or washroom is a room or small building with toilets and sinks for use by the general public. The facilities are available to customers, travelers, employees of a business, school pupils and prisoners and are commonly separated into male and female toilets, although some are unisex, especially for small or single-occupancy public toilets, public toilets are accessible to people with disabilities. Depending on the culture, there may be varying degrees of separation between males and females and different levels of privacy. Typically, the entire room, or a stall or cubicle containing a toilet, is lockable. Urinals, if present in a male toilet, are typically mounted on a wall with or without a divider between them. Local authorities or commercial businesses may provide public toilet facilities. Some are unattended while others are staffed by an attendant. In many cultures, it is customary to tip the attendant, especially if they provide a specific service, such as might be the case at upscale nightclubs or restaurants.
A chemical toilet collects human excreta in a holding tank and uses chemicals to minimize odors. They do not require a connection to a water supply and are used in a variety of situations. These toilets are usually, but not always, self-contained and movable. A chemical toilet is structured around a relatively small tank, which needs to be emptied frequently. It is not connected to a hole in the ground, nor to a septic tank, nor is it plumbed into a municipal system leading to a sewage treatment plant. When the tank is emptied, the contents are usually pumped into a sanitary sewer or directly to a treatment plant.
A pay toilet is a public toilet that requires the user to pay. It may be street furniture or be inside a building, e.g. a shopping mall, department store, or railway station. The reason for charging money is usually for the maintenance of the equipment. Paying to use a toilet can be traced back almost 2000 years, to the first century BCE. The charge is often collected by an attendant or by inserting coins into an automatic turnstile; in some freestanding toilets in the street, the fee is inserted into a slot by the door. Mechanical coin operated locks are also used. Some more high tech toilets accept card or contactless payments. Sometimes, a token can be used to enter a pay toilet without paying the charge. Some municipalities offer these tokens to residents with disabilities so these groups aren't discriminated against by the pay toilet. Some establishments such as cafés and restaurants offer tokens to their customers so they can use the toilets for free but other users must pay the relevant charge.
Latrinalia is a type of deliberately inscribed or etched marking made on latrines; that is, bathrooms or lavatory walls. It can take the form of art, drawings, or words, including poetry and personal reflections. Other types of latrinalia include political commentary and notes on love as well as derogatory comments and pictures. When done without the property owner's consent, it constitutes vandalism. Some venues have attempted to curb such vandalism by installing in the lavatory large blackboards and providing free chalk; it is hoped that patrons will avail themselves of the blackboard and chalk rather than applying their latrinalia directly to the walls or toilet stalls.
A towel animal is a depiction of an animal created by folding small towels. It is conceptually similar to origami, but uses towels rather than paper. Some common towel animals are elephants, snakes, rabbits and swans.
Potty parity is equal or equitable provision of public toilet facilities for females and males within a public space.
A hand dryer is an electric machine which might make use of a heating element and an air blower to dry the hands after hand washing. It is commonly used in public toilets as a cost-effective alternative to paper towels.
A paper-towel dispenser is a wall-mounted device that dispenses paper towels in a public toilet so that hands can be dried after hand washing. Some are operated by a handle, some by pulling the paper from the dispenser, and others by automatic dispensation in response to a motion sensor, which is generally powered by an internal battery. Many dispensers also feature a lock-and-key mechanism to prevent paper theft.
Unisex public toilets are public toilets that are not separated by gender or sex.
A toilet is a small room used for privately accessing the sanitation fixture (toilet) for urination and defecation. Toilet rooms often include a sink (basin) with soap/handwash for handwashing, as this is important for personal hygiene. These rooms are typically referred to in the USA as "half-bathrooms" in a private residence.
The Portland Loo is a type of single-occupancy public toilet designed by the city of Portland, Oregon. It is manufactured, sold, and marketed by the Portland-based manufacturer Madden Fabrication under license from the city, for $96,000 each. The first unit was installed in the Old Town Chinatown neighborhood in Portland in 2008. Since the first unit was installed, additional 54 units have been purchased by February 2018, mostly by 20 other cities and 15 of them within the city of Portland.
A devious lick was a challenge in which North American middle school and high school students posted videos of themselves stealing, vandalizing, or showing off one or more items they stole in their school, typically from a bathroom. The trend went viral on TikTok in 2021 and has resulted in the arrests of many students as well as various warnings being issued by police departments. It also allegedly spread to some schools in Latin America, England, Germany, Australia and Latvia.
The Bryant Park restroom is a public toilet in Bryant Park, an urban park in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The 315-square-foot (29.3 m2) structure was built at the same time as the New York Public Library Main Branch and designed by the same architects. It opened in 1911 and closed in the 1960s as the surrounding park deteriorated. It was restored in the 1990s and underwent renovations in 2006 and 2017, modeled after luxury hotel bathrooms. With flowers, automatic toilets, original artwork, classical music, and an attendant, it is often regarded as among the best public bathrooms in the city, used by more than a million people per year.
