Paper towel or kitchen roll? What do you call it?

[ScotInExile]

I was visiting my SIL recently and while helping clean up after dinner I asked her where she kept her kitchen roll. She looked at me blankly and said 'what?'. I figured she just didn't hear me properly so asked again where the kitchen roll was and was again met with a confused look. I asked if she had any kitchen roll or if she had run out and she really didn't know what I was asking her for. It was only when I started searching and found the roll in the cupboard under the sink that she said 'Ah, you were looking for PAPER TOWEL!'
Now I don't think I'm the unreasonable one here, surely everyone knows that kitchen roll is another name for paper towel?
What do you call it in your house?

Kitchen roll. Paper towel is definitely for public toilets.

Is she British? It seems from replies here that most British people say kitchen roll. I actually didn't realise that, I grew up mostly not in Britain and have always said kitchen paper.

Generally called kitchen roll as it is almost always found only in the kitchen and on a roll so it's easy to use.

I say loo paper as well, not loo roll...

It's kitchen roll. Is SIL not from the uk maybe?

'Paper towel' is the first aid of choice delivered by primary schools. Not much that can't be fixed by a wet paper towel.

No different to saying "toilet roll".

I would expect most adults in the UK to understand kitchen roll/kitchen towel/kitchen paper or paper towel.

It sounds like possibly a 'U/non-U' distinction someone might draw, as in 'I'm too posh to understand this working class phrase 'kitchen roll' - except I have never heard of 'paper towel' being considered posher than 'kitchen roll'.

Could it stem from some kind of 'I don't spend any time in the kitchen so I don't think of it as 'kitchen roll' mentality?

Kitchen paper

Yes - paper towel brings to mind the folded things in dispensers, often in a shade of green, and much coarser and less absorbent than kitchen towel.

Yes... a roll of kitchen... just as a toilet roll is a roll of toilet

Kitchen roll. Paper towels are what you dry your hands in in public loos.

Aka as the cold compress.

Kitchen roll. @fizzyfood you made me laugh because I have in laws who call it Polly roll. I have no idea why!

Kitchen roll because I buy the type that comes in a roll rather than the type that's more like individual blue sheets for drying your hands in public loos. I would know what a person meant if they said paper towel.

Is your SIL from the UK?

The one that makes me laugh is "glad wrap". (Australian)

Kitchen roll
Paper towel = public toilets
Kitchen towel is a separate hand drying towel which people more hygienic than me (my mum) keep in the kitchen. I’m a sloven and use a tea towel

Kitchen roll, as it’s used in the kitchen as opposed to toilet roll (used in the toilet)

Kitchen roll

kitchen roll

Exactly what I think of when someone says paper towel!

Kitchen roll.

Have noticed that most are now branded as kitchen towel though, which doesn’t seem particularly logical to me?

South Africa !

I call it kitchen roll but my DH will use both of them.I have noticed it depends what room he is in at the time.

Toilet roll is also weird.
Do British people have something against the word ‘paper’?