During the early months of the pandemic, the world went through The Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020. Media reported that toilet paper (among other things. Computer chips. Baby formula. Cream cheese.) was in short supply, which made for panic buying and hoarding, which made the stuff in even more short supply until TP companies could either catch up with the increased panic purchases, or people finally discovered they had enough TP to last them until next Christmas and would STOP BUYING MORE MORE.

Anyway, do you know who LOVED the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020? Places that made bidets. Companies such as TOTO, Kohler, Tushy, American Standard (they sell the SpaLet), etc., were flush with money (you see what I did there?) because if you couldn’t clean your butt with TP, you could always clean yourself with water, right?

Case in point, American Standard saw an increase of more than 400% in sales within its SpaLet category. And Tushy, with had made $8 million in 2019 made $40 million in 2020.

Bidets rock!

And all y’all who had bought a bidet in 2020 were finding out what I had learned since my visit to Japan in 1994 (AND since I had a TOTO Washlet installed in our master bathroom in 2009): bidets ROCK! They get your nether regions clean much faster than TP does and with significantly less TP, to boot.

The thing is, once you’ve gotten used to using a bidet when you’re not at home and nature calls, you wind up missing your bidet horribly. Especially when things are, shall we say, messier?

Enter: portable bidets

I really don’t know when portable bidets started in American markets, but nowadays, they tend to go into one of 3 camps:

• Battery powered – these are compact bidets that have their own reservoir typically made of a hard plastic material. They pump the water from the reservoir to a wand/spout via a battery-powered motor.
• Hand powered – these bidets come with their own squeeze bottles, with a wand/spout at the end.
• Just the wand – these are made to connect to a water bottle of your choice.

After a whole lot of considering pros and cons, I bought a TOTO handheld portable bidet. The one I bought, in May of 2017, was the YEW350-WH. It’s still available on Amazon and I’ve read the only major difference between it and the HW300 is that all the writing on mine is in Japanese. The HW300 is specifically for the American market and has instructions in English.

NOTE: I was not asked to review this product, and received no compensation for same. It was a product I purchased on my own, simply because I wanted one.

TOTO Travel Handy Washlet YEW350-WH

I seriously can’t tell you what the packaging for this was because, again, I bought it over seven years ago. However, there’s a photo on an Amazon review that suggests it came in a blue box with directions, in Japanese, on how to use it. If you can read Japanese, great. If not, it’s pretty self-explanatory.

The TOTO portable Washlet comes with a small bag you can carry it in. That bag has a plastic, elongated coin-like piece that keeps the bag’s strings together but can also be used to twist open and close the battery cover (without it, you’ll need a coin, butter knife, etc., Or so I’ve heard…)

(forgive the condition of my bag – again, it’s over 7 years old and has been knocked around in carry-ons and backpacks all over the world)

The TOTO portable Washlet takes 1 AA battery.

The reservoir houses the rest of the Washlet, so you need to pull the 2 ends of the Washlet until it won’t extend anymore.

The end of the reservoir flips open, and that’s where you can fill it with water (it holds about 180mls, which is roughly 6 ounces)

Meanwhile, on the side of the motor housing, the wand is in a small housing space. You flip that out like a flagpole.

At the end of the wand, you have a choice of water coming out of 5 or 3 holes. Using 3 holes makes the stream a bit stronger.

The holes all face one direction; let’s call that the top. If you flip the TOTO Washlet over, you’ll see a button on the bottom; that’s the button you use to turn the Washlet on and off.

How to use it

First get the portable bidet set up:

• battery inserted and cover closed (an alkaline battery is recommended for maximal performance)
• Pull the 2 ends to free the reservoir
• Fill the reservoir & close the cover
• Flip open the wand
• Choose 3 or 5 holes

My favorite quote from an Amazon review:

The device is essentially a small plastic water tank with a pump that shoots water out of a stiff retractable plastic wand. When not in use the whole thing folds into itself ingeniously. If you ever played with Transformer toys when you were a kid, you will absolutely love the way you push, pull, and fold the different parts to transform this gadget from its compact storage mode (when it could fit inside of your pants pocket) to its action mode.

And then just aim and press the button to start and then stop the bidet.

Front or back?

Some people wonder if they should use the bidet from the front or the back. Everyone’s different; whatever works best for you.

How well does it work?

I’ll be honest: a small, battery-powered handheld bidet that can hold 6 ounces of water will never work, as well as an electrically powered one that sprays unlimited amounts of water.

With that in mind, it works relatively well. Of course, it all depends on how much you have to clean up. But sometimes I’ve been able to get clean with the reservoir filled up once, sometimes more. Regardless, I’ve always ended up feeling cleaner than with toilet paper alone (and if I had a “big job,” with a significantly less irritated bottom, too.

Don’t believe me? Read the Amazon review from a user named Gimme9, from April, 2022.

Complaints

My TOTO portable washlet has worked fine since the day I got it. However more than one reviewer on Amazon has said they’ve had the motor die much faster than they would have expected, especially considering it has a starting price of nearly $62 (it was less when I bought it LOL), and was from a well-known name like TOTO. I guess I got lucky? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My only personal complaint isn’t as much of a complaint as a warning – when you’re filling the reservoir, make sure the water isn’t too hot or too cold. I may or may not have gotten a 1st degree burn, or frostbite once or twice.

PC: Lowes. Notes: The TOTO Portable bidet with the pink reservoir is no longer available

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