Why you should never buy this toilet paper from Aldi

Everybody knows Aldi is a great place to shop for frozen foods, cereal, milk, wine, and other basic kitchen staples, and even for the occasional surprise Special Buy like a new throw rug or an inflatable hot tub (hey, when you succumb to an impulse buy, might as well make it a big one).

One thing you may be overlooking on your weekly (daily?) Aldi runs, however, is their paper products. Part of the charm of Aldi is that their stores are on the small side — it’s one of the ways they keep their prices so low, after all. The result is that Aldis can have a tendency to appear somewhat cluttered, though we mean that in the nicest possible way. This means that sometimes you might not notice a product unless you’re really looking for it, so if you were unaware that Aldi carries their own line of toilet paper, well, you’re not alone, it’s not really one of their better-known items. But does this mean it’s not worth buying? Well, that depends on what type of TP you purchase. As with most Aldi items, there are must-buys and don’t-buys.

What types of toilet paper does Aldi carry?

According to Aldi Reviewer, Aldi offers quite the range of bath tissue. There’s Willow So Soft, which is meant to resemble the Angel Soft brand, and comes in an 18-roll double pack. There’s also Willow Soft and Strong Premium, which is comparable to Quilted Northern, and comes in 12-packs and 24-packs. The 9-roll pack of Willow Mega Rolls Ultra Soft Ultra Premium is kind of like Charmin Ultra Soft, and each roll is supposed to be triple-sized. Willow Mega Rolls Ultra Strong Ultra Premium is similarly-sized and compares to Charmin Ultra Soft. 

There’s also a Daily Basics Soft and Strong Bath Tissue which comes in 4-packs and is probably pretty much like that stuff you get at the dollar store. All of the above options are double-ply, but there’s also a single-ply option, the Willow 1000 Essential that’s more or less a knockoff version of Scott 1000 Sheets Bath Tissue. It comes in 4-, 12-, and 20-packs, each with (as the name implies) 1,000 sheets per roll.

Which Aldi toilet paper should you NOT buy?

Of all of the above-mentioned types of toilet paper, there’s one clear dud, unless price is your only object, in which case that same TP comes out ahead of the pack. The biggest loser/winner in the bunch is the Willow 1000 Essential, Aldi Reviewer called it their least favorite out of all the Aldi brands, saying this flimsy single-ply TP felt ” like something out of a government building” and was similar to the paper you’d find in a school bathroom. Even the reviewer’s 5-year-old got in on the dissing, questioning why they’d bought toilet paper that was see-through. 

A thread on Reddit devoted to Aldi toilet paper also called out Aldi’s sole single-ply brand — while nobody referred to Willow 1000 Essential by name, they noted its purple label as well as its thickness. One Reddit user shared her experience: “Whoa whoa whoa. Let me tell you the one mistake I have made shopping at Aldi. BUYING THE PURPLE CHEAP TOILET PAPER. It is see through thin, the rolls are never ending and your butt will not thank you. My boyfriend went to Target immediately for Angel Soft after I brought it home.”

It is, however, definitely the least expensive – Aldi Reviewer did the math and found out that Essential 1000 is less than half the cost per square foot of the second-cheapest brand (Daily Basics), so still a better bargain even accounting for the fact that it’s half the thickness.

So which Aldi toilet paper should you be buying instead?

Just about any of the other ones will do, it seems, since the rest appear to be perfectly adequate for the price. One Redditor even noted that “the purple Willow brand” was decent enough for bidet users who didn’t need their TP to do much more than drying off their delicate bits.

While Aldi Reviewer liked the So Soft Classic, calling it their family’s years-long go-to TP, Smart Family Money had a different verdict regarding that same paper. They found it to be “thin, scratchy, and uncomfortable, and thought it felt “like ‘bargain toilet paper’.” Their pick for best Aldi toilet paper was the Willow Soft and Strong, saying it was “great value for the money…’not bad’ as far as comfort.” For a more high-quality toilet paper experience, in case only the best will do for your pampered posterior, they recommend either the Willow Ultra Soft (“pretty soft and comfortable [though] a bit of a linty mess”) or Willow Ultra Strong (“not quite as soft as I prefer, but it seems like a pretty good quality”).

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