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Original poster

I don’t know how bidets work!

124 replies

MuchuseasaChocolateTeapot · 02/03/2023 20:02

I am over half a century old and I genuinely don’t know what the procedure for using a bidet is. We were on holiday last week and there was a separate room with a loo and a bidet in it. The toilet had loo roll on the left and then the bidet on the right. The other side of the bidet held a small hand towel on a hook and bizarrely, a phone.

Do you go to the loo, wipe or no wipe? Then shuffle six feet with your clothes round your ankles to the bidet. Then do you hover or sit? Do you dry yourself on the hand towel afterwards? If so is everyone using the same towel?! Because I wash my make up off with a mild scrub and there is occasionally a small residue of mascara/foundation on the towel when I dry afterwards, if you catch my drift, and I don’t share a face towel! I would certainly not want to share that towel!

An electric loo I used in Japan had very confusing buttons and I pressed the ‘rinse’ button by mistake and the jet hit the ceiling, are they all pretty powerful? If so isn’t it a faff sitting/squatting and having to operate the taps behind you? Or should I be facing the taps?

Is the procedure the same for no. 1’s and 2’s?

so many questions?..sorry for being dim

OP posts:
Oioicaptain · 02/03/2023 21:49

"On that house renovation show in Sicily recently with Amanda Holden and Alan Carr, they bought a bidet and the shop seller showed them you use it facing the taps, not the other way."

I think that they saw them coming, so to speak, no pun intended...although if they did sit on it facing forward....

Palm7rees · 02/03/2023 21:50

We have one in our UK year 2000 built house (they all do on our estate)
so far used mine for cleaning paint brushes and also for entertaining the toddler with bath toys (she stands and plays) while I have an extra long shower!

thesonicoscillator · 02/03/2023 21:51

This was covered recently here
I have two in my house, we're in Italy where they are mandatory in all houses. Use paper first, then sit on bidet, use bidet soap and bidet towels. There's a stack in the bathroom, take a fresh one, use it, chuck it in the washing basket afterwards.

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Palm7rees · 02/03/2023 21:51

I think you’re meant to face the taps. If not you could easily shock yourself with too hot/cold water and not be able to change it quick enough…

Oioicaptain · 02/03/2023 21:52

That portable bidet just looks gross and not something that I would wish to encounter hanging up next to a hand basin. It reminds me of those plastic handled bum scrapers that you can buy if you can't wipe your own arse... The question being where and how do you clean them afterwards.... Although if you had a portable bidet....

Original poster
MuchuseasaChocolateTeapot · 02/03/2023 22:01

Gosh sorry! Didn’t realise this had already been asked so recently. Should have checked first, apologies.

😳 at mandatory bidets. What would the punishment be if you didn’t have one? I’ve spent a lot of time in Italy and don’t recall seeing rows and rows of little towels on washing lines. Will observe more closely in future.

OP posts:
wheresmymojo · 02/03/2023 22:04

thesonicoscillator · 02/03/2023 21:51

This was covered recently here
I have two in my house, we're in Italy where they are mandatory in all houses. Use paper first, then sit on bidet, use bidet soap and bidet towels. There's a stack in the bathroom, take a fresh one, use it, chuck it in the washing basket afterwards.

Bidet...soap?

My contamination OCD knows there is no way that soap isn't smeared with microscopic poo smears...

Rebel2 · 02/03/2023 22:18

I have a bidet bottle
Wipe as usual, soap, rinse, flannel to dry
Helps prevent cystitis which is why I use it

thesonicoscillator · 02/03/2023 22:20

wheresmymojo · 02/03/2023 22:04

Bidet...soap?

My contamination OCD knows there is no way that soap isn't smeared with microscopic poo smears...

Show quote history

it's liquid soap, especially for bidets

I don’t know how bidets work!
PillBoxes · 02/03/2023 22:23

Well I couldn't be arsed.

MichaelFabricantWig · 02/03/2023 22:24

I’ve never worked it out either. I’ve seen the single towel next to it and wondered if everyone was meant to dry their arse with it. Surely not.

I’ve never known whether you are meant to fill it and dip your arse in it or just wet your hands under it and have a sort of wet wipe around

RaraRachael · 02/03/2023 22:25

I grew up thinking it was a foot bath as when I was about 7 we went to a hotel that had one and I can remember my mother saying, "Oh look Rachael, it's even got a little foot bath"

Even when I was older and found out its real purpose, I couldn't understand why people would wash their bums, other that in a bath or shower,

As for pronunciation, we had an aspirational friend who told us she'd stayed in a hotel that was really posh and had a BYE-DETT

Namechange1011111stairs · 02/03/2023 22:33

If you're meant to wipe front to back to stop germs getting in your vagina and urethra, how do you stop the dirty water running down to the front?

I can see how they are meant to be cleaner but I don't get the practicalities.

Barold · 02/03/2023 22:33

This thread has made me laugh. I don’t say that from a superior position - I, too, have never quite understood them.

Do you wipe the toilet down after each use?

Err no. I don’t think most people do! Maybe mumsnetters do though…If they’re frightened of a toilet brush, they’re probably nervous about toilet germs! 😂

Rebel2 · 02/03/2023 22:38

Namechange1011111stairs · 02/03/2023 22:33

If you're meant to wipe front to back to stop germs getting in your vagina and urethra, how do you stop the dirty water running down to the front?

I can see how they are meant to be cleaner but I don't get the practicalities.

Mine is a bottle but if you sit with your tailbone as the lowest point and kind of hunch over, it doesn't run forward
God that's a really attractive way of putting it BlushGrin I can't really describe it well

sevenbyseven · 02/03/2023 22:41

It's funny we're squeamish about bidets but don't feel the same about baths which wash not just bums but also hands and even faces, all in the same water.

Calistan · 02/03/2023 22:48

Reminds me of the confusion of that poor dude at Glastonbury washing his hands in the very used urinal in the background Grin

Calistan · 02/03/2023 22:51

eew

2bazookas · 02/03/2023 22:52

I wipe bum with TP while on the toilet, lean over turn on bidet taps, sit on bidet, wash bum under warm waterflow, then dry my spotless bot with my personal bot towel.

I love my bidet; only wish I'd had one when I still menstruated.

If you all wash your bums in the shower, I bet you don't change the shower towel every time.. even though you dried your bot.

stonedaisy · 02/03/2023 22:57

2bazookas · 02/03/2023 22:52

I wipe bum with TP while on the toilet, lean over turn on bidet taps, sit on bidet, wash bum under warm waterflow, then dry my spotless bot with my personal bot towel.

I love my bidet; only wish I'd had one when I still menstruated.

If you all wash your bums in the shower, I bet you don't change the shower towel every time.. even though you dried your bot.

Good point

BrutusMcDogface · 02/03/2023 22:58

something I’ve always wondered about the bum hoses; doesn’t water run everywhere when you use them? All over your legs/knickers and trousers? 🤔

I’ve travelled to places with them and haven’t touched them with a barge pole (public toilets). You don’t know what’s all over them 🤢

xprincessxjanetx · 02/03/2023 23:07

This thread has reminded me of my first experience with a bidet!

I was 18 and just had my first DC. It was a pretty horrific birth and I was catheterised for a couple of days as I was not allowed out of bed because my BP was so low. Once I got the catheter removed the midwife showed me to the toilet and said to use the bidet as it would help lower the risk of infection as I had an episiotomy and stitches. I used the toilet as normal and then just sat there for about 10 minutes looking at the bidet in confusion. I had never encountered one before and I was terribly shy so I just wiped and left it. I have had 5 more children since then at the same hospital and every single time I have just ignored it...maybe I will actually use it when I have my twins!

Rebel2 · 02/03/2023 23:31

xprincessxjanetx · 02/03/2023 23:07

This thread has reminded me of my first experience with a bidet!

I was 18 and just had my first DC. It was a pretty horrific birth and I was catheterised for a couple of days as I was not allowed out of bed because my BP was so low. Once I got the catheter removed the midwife showed me to the toilet and said to use the bidet as it would help lower the risk of infection as I had an episiotomy and stitches. I used the toilet as normal and then just sat there for about 10 minutes looking at the bidet in confusion. I had never encountered one before and I was terribly shy so I just wiped and left it. I have had 5 more children since then at the same hospital and every single time I have just ignored it...maybe I will actually use it when I have my twins!

Use it! They're great after sex, periods, and it's somewhere between soothing and refreshing and everything feels cleaner

WhatCanWeDoNext · 02/03/2023 23:34

I lived in a house share that had one in the 90s. We used it to shave our legs in (heathens 😄)

Original poster
MuchuseasaChocolateTeapot · 02/03/2023 23:37

Okay since I’m on a roll I’m going to derail my own thread. There is something else I’ve always wondered and can’t figure out, I only ever used san towels or Tampax (with applicators) and my question is, if you use a non applicator tampon and you’re in a school/work/public loo I presume you wash your hands then go into a cubicle, change the tampon and exit? But in the meantime you have touched the door and lock before you furkle so your hands are no longer clean and then how do you get out of the cubicle without looking like you’ve just slaughtered a chicken and leaving that all over the door and lock before you can get to the basin? Unless you are all more delicate than I was and perhaps not as heavy flow!

I am almost phobic about public loos so I give these things a lot of thought.

Glad this is anonymous….

OP posts: