Funny My Wife Tried to Use the Bathroom
Who should get a toilet stool
Stylish and sturdy: Tushy Ottoman
Our pick
If the MoMA Design Store sold a toilet stool, we think it would be the Tushy Ottoman. Even expensive toilet stools tend to be conspicuously mismatched bathroom add-ons. But not this subtle stool. The well-appointed Tushy Ottoman is to a white porcelain toilet what a wedding band should be to an engagement solitaire: a seamless, harmonious, and aesthetically pleasing addition that makes the whole experience better.
The Tushy Ottoman has a smooth and easy-to-clean crevice-free surface that curves gracefully around the base of any standard toilet.
Like all toilet stools (or stacks of books, or anything else you could use to raise your knees to your chest while you poop), it works. It's sturdy and remains immobile during use. Some reviewers warn that the Tushy Ottoman is overly slick when they're wearing socks, but we didn't experience any foot slippage.
The Tushy Ottoman comes unassembled, but it takes only a couple of minutes to pop the legs in place. Choose between faux wood or white legs (available in two heights). We tested the Original Ottoman, with 9-inch legs; the Relaxed version's 7½-inch legs are an option for taller people or beginner squatters. Tushy told us it will soon sell legs of varying heights separately, for people who wish to adjust their squatting position (to make it shallower or deeper) without having to purchase an entirely new stool. We'll test that accessories set once it's available.
Though all of the other toilet-stool picks in this guide say they are safe for people of all ages, Tushy warns that its Ottomans are not intended for use by children under age 12.
Like all of the toilet stools we recommend, the Tushy Ottoman is not to be used as anything other than a footrest.
Dimensions: 7½ or 9 inches tall by 16½ inches wide (foot to foot) by 9 inches deep (front to back)
Materials: plastic (polypropylene body; acrylonitrile butadiene styrene legs)
Options: There are two leg-height options—9 inches (on the Original, which we tested) and 7½ inches (on the Relaxed version). What you choose depends on your toilet's height and how new you are to squatting. Tushy said that starting in April 2021, it will sell sets of the interchangeable legs separately ($29), for those who wish to try out different heights without having to buy another stool.
Foldable and portable: Squatty Potty Stockholm Folding Bamboo Stool
Slim but sturdy: EasyGoPro Original
Our pick
The EasyGoPro Original is a dainty and affordable choice for people with smaller bathrooms who still want a traditional toilet stool that stows around the base of the toilet when it's not in use. The ice version, in particular, blends in nicely with any color scheme, since it is nearly translucent. This stool has a flat platform with no grime-collecting crevices. Although it comes with a conspicuous logo sticker attached, the sticker peels off in one piece and leaves behind no residue. This stool is also very lightweight (about a pound) and easy to move around. But most importantly, it does not shift while you're using it.
Like all of the toilet stools we recommend, the EasyGoPro is not to be used as anything other than a footrest.
Dimensions: 7½ inches tall by 17 inches wide (foot to foot) by 8½ inches deep (front to back)
Materials: plastic (polypropylene)
Options: This stool comes in ice and pink (at the time of publication).
A bulkier budget option: Step and Go Toilet Stool
A ghost chair for your feet: Proppr Acer (Clear)
Our pick
If you're looking for a toilet stool that in no way looks like a toilet stool, and you are willing to pay a hefty premium for a camouflaged device, the Proppr Acer stool is beautiful and functional. Available in colors and materials that will suit any bathroom decor, the well-designed Proppr stool turns a perfunctory accessory into a statement piece. The favorite among our testers: the Acer in Clear. It has a sloped platform and can be flipped around to be used at either height. At 9½ inches on its highest incline (and 8½ inches on its lower side), the Proppr toilet stool is the tallest of any stool we recommend, theoretically offering a deeper squat position (this height may prove daunting to newbie squatters).
Unlike our other picks, the Proppr Acer does not have a cutout to conform to the toilet bowl; you may consider this to be a nice feature or a bug, depending on your preferences. It also doesn't have conspicuous branding, so to an unsuspecting guest using your facilities, it may look like someone left a display box or desk organizer in the middle of your bathroom floor.
If you love the look of this stool but are put off by its high price, you may find this DIY version to be a worthwhile alternative.
Like all of the toilet stools we recommend, the Proppr Acer is not to be used as anything other than a footrest.
Dimensions: 9½ inches or 8½ inches tall (depending upon which way you turn it) by 15 inches long (foot to foot) by 6½ inches deep (front to back)
Materials: acrylic or wood (pine/oak combo)
Options: This stool is available in three colors in wood (oak, blackwash, and whitewash) and three colors in acrylic (white, clear, and black), at the time of publication. The wooden versions, which we haven't tested, have slightly different dimensions and cost more than the acrylic ones.
Why you should trust us
To learn all we could about optimal pooping positions, we consulted four practicing gastroenterologists: Salina Lee, MD, an assistant professor of gastroenterology at Rush University in Chicago; Sophie M. Balzora, MD, a clinical associate professor of medicine at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine; Rohan Modi, MD, who is a paid member of Squatty Potty's advisory council; and Peter Stanich, MD, an associate professor of gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
In my 39 years (37 out of diapers), I've pooped all over the place. I've popped squats everywhere from a dirt hole in India to the hardwood floor of a Santa Monica birthing center. And—most recently—I've pooped in a variety of portable toilets, as part of my job reviewing personal-care products for Wirecutter. A toilet stool has been in and out of my life for nearly two decades. Well before purpose-built devices with kitschy brand names and flashy commercials became bathroom staples, I purchased my first toilet stool at a Los Angeles colonic spa (which I'd visited to prepare for a magazine-cover photo shoot, back in my modeling heyday). That stool was handmade, a wooden work of art, and I miss it to this day.
How we picked and tested
First I flushed out the competition by scouring customer reviews at Amazon and other big-box stores. Then I strained through Google search results of personal blogs and brand websites to find lesser-known yet beloved brands, until we had a satisfactory variety of wooden, folding, and plastic stools to consider. Based on previous research and testing, we knew to eliminate from consideration anything that had excessive ridges or grooves, which can collect splashes and make cleaning a pain.
Four people of different ages, heights, and bathroom habits living in the same household (mine) rotated through 13 toilet stools over the course of five weeks. In testing toilet stools, we considered a stool's slip factor (related both to our feet upon it and to the stool itself on tile and wood floors), ease of cleaning, aesthetics, and comfort (a subjective, but important, ranking).
Which stool height is right?
The competition
Clear plastic toilet stools
Because the translucent Proppr Acer reminded us of an acrylic display shelf, we tried to prop up our feet on one of those, too. Despite being roughly the right dimensions (8½ inches tall, 13½ inches long, and 9 inches deep) and around half the price, the homemade shelf lacked nonslip grips on the bottom, which can be a danger both to floors and to bodies. However, when we put a few cents' worth of grip tape around our DIY version's perimeter, we were able to create a beautiful clear "toilet stool" for under $55 total. Compared with the Proppr, though, the modified display case is bulkier (because of its depth) and not as versatile (because of its uniform height).
If you're looking for a shorter acrylic toilet stool (the Proppr ranges from 8½ inches to 9½ inches in height, and our display-shelf DIY stool is 8½ inches tall) or one with a cutout to fit around the base of your toilet, the Squatty Potty Ghost is 7 inches high. But it sports a bulkier profile overall and has many grime-collecting ridges.
Opaque plastic toilet stools
Our budget pick, the Step and Go, does not offer a 9-inch version. If you'd like a 9-inch plastic stool, consider the Squatty Potty Original or the folding Squat-N-Go, both of which are slightly more expensive than the Step and Go we recommend.
Pooping while using the Toilestool felt like trying to poop on stilts—slippery, sliding, scary stilts.
Wooden toilet stools
The Squatty Potty Slim Teak, our previous top pick, is still a nice toilet stool. But at 7 inches, it is shorter than our folding pick from Squatty Potty, and it has conspicuous branding. It also has a larger footprint and many grime-catching crevices. Furthermore, the large Squatty Potty sticker on the one we reordered in 2021 left behind an impossible-to-remove sticky residue.
The rustic-looking bamboo Step and Go comes in two different heights (7 inches and 9 inches). But it was difficult to put together, and it has conspicuous branding as well as grime-catching crevices.
The Squatty Potty Bamboo Flip, which can be switched around for different heights (7 inches and 9 inches in the same stool), was difficult to assemble. And some of the wood had rough spots. This stool also has conspicuous branding and grime-catching crevices.
The MallBoo Adjustable Toilet Stool with Massage Rollers wasn't difficult to assemble, but it's not easy to figure out which height will work for you before assembling the stool for the first time: You may have to take the pieces apart to raise or lower the stool after using it. All the nooks and crannies make it a poor choice for a highly trafficked bathroom—it gets dirty pretty quickly. Though we thought the massage rollers would be a frequently used benefit, they collected dust (literally and figuratively).
—Shannon Palus contributed to this guide.
Sources
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Salina Lee, assistant professor of gastroenterology at Rush University , phone interview , January 29, 2021
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Sophie M. Balzora, clinical associate professor of medicine at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine , email interview , January 29, 2021
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Rohan Modi, MD, consultant for Squatty Potty , phone interview , January 29, 2021
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Peter Stanich, associate professor of gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center , phone interview , January 29, 2021
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/squatty-potty-review/
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