The first patent for toilet paper was found in 1891 by Owen Williams. Many people use one of the patent pictures of toilet paper as proof of which way the paper should roll.

One of the problems with going with the patent pictures is that people don’t always look at all the pictures! Some of those pictures do show the paper rolling forward and some of them backwards, so you can’t really get the answer that way.

Let’s take a quick look at where we’ve come from, the toilet paper, and what was used before there was toilet paper. The answer to that has multiple answers, depending on personal preference and wealth. The wealthy often used hemp, lace or wool. Strange enough, a 16th century writer recommended using the neck of a goose that was well downed, gross! First off, poor people like radio DJ's would simply use the rivers! Clean off in the water, wood shavings, leaves, seaweed, apple husks, seashells, ferns, pretty much whatever was handy. As painful as that sounds, ancient Romans favored a sponge on a stick that would sit in saltwater and then be placed back in the saltwater when done waiting for the next person.

But I digress, what we’re looking for is to the answer over or under, so here are some over support arguments.

A risk of brushing the wall or cabinet with one’s knuckles and keeping potential grime in germs from wall and under toilet paper. Over also makes it easier to locate and grasp the loose end, places like hotels, public places and such to show that the bathroom has been clean.

But the answer for today is this, manufactures branding intended direction to be over the top so the pattern of the toilet paper looks good.

Now for the under supporters, under is a tidier appearance and reduces the risk of a toddler or a house pet from completely unrolling the toilet paper and if it’s in a recreational type vehicle it can reduce the unrolling during driving.

Whatever you choose is the correct way, total papers, long way from rocks and sticks, and with the way society is now and how manufacturers make their toilet paper the correct answer is going to have to be over.

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