The Last Technology Frontier: Your Toilet

Bidets, bling and urinals offer unexpected bathroom facelifts in the name of luxury, comfort and the environment

By Michelle Taute
CTW Features

Now that's a throne: Combine 53,000 hand-set Swarovski crystals with a chrome-plated toilet and you'll end up with a \$75,000 masterpiece. Image courtesy Jemal Wright Bath Designs

If you haven't lived through a bathroom-remodeling project lately, you might be in for a surprise the next time you go shopping for a toilet. Sure, you expect to spend hours pouring over tile samples, but how many toilet choices can there really be? Sounds like a 20-minute errand: Walk into a remodeling store or plumbing showroom, choose white or beige, and glance at the water usage.

But today the process isn't nearly so simple. "People are very surprised when they haven't bought a toilet in 20 years," says Julie Brady, showroom manager at Standard of New England, Portsmouth, N. H. "They say, 'Oh, I need a toilet,' thinking there are going to be two or three choices." In reality, Brady shows them countless toilets ranging in price from $200 up to $5,000.

There are high-tech toilets with wireless remotes and a dizzying array of functions. Legions of water-saving models compete to soothe your green conscious. Comfort-height models promise to lessen strain on knees while one-piece toilets achieve a sleek look that's easier to clean. Then there are fancy, electronic seats that turn your current toilet into a bidet, and showy, custom toilets best described as "bathroom bling."

Maybe you'd better slot a little more time into your planner to choose the right one. If you're looking for luxury, the Neorest 600 by TOTO USA, Morrow, Ga., offers beauty and brains. The lid automatically opens when you approach, and the toilet automatically flushes and closes the lid when you're done. There's also a wireless remote, built-in deodorizer and a warm-water spray to clean private parts. And since it's a tankless toilet, the Neorest offers a distinctive, modern look.

But with a price tag of more than $5,000, who's buying? TOTO says A-list Hollywood stars such as Will Smith, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Lopez enjoy their Neorests. Plus, Brady believes there's a wider market for luxury toilets. "People with high-end homes have high-end everything else, so they want a high-end toilet," she says.

Scott Pinizzotto, CEO and founder of Brondell, San Francisco, thinks it's about time for the toilet to catch up with the other spa features in the bathroom. His company offers the Swash, a bidet seat that fits on most existing toilets with minimal effort. This add-on gives you a heated seat, warm-water wash, warm-air dry and a gently closing seat and lid. Pinizzotto says it drastically reduces toilet paper use while offering a much better cleaning experience. But the product does require a nearby electrical outlet.

"It's a way better way of taking care of business in the bathroom," he says. "We'd never use dry paper to clean a dirty dish. Dry paper doesn't really clean anything." In 10 years, he believes bidet seats will be as widely accepted as $100 electric toothbrushes. Once people try the Swash, he says they often can't live without it. Brondell's sales more than doubled from 2006 to 2007, and he expects to triple last year's numbers in 2008. The Swash starts at $459, and TOTO and Kohler offer similar products.

Interest in luxury toilets also may be driven by people paying more attention to themselves whenever and wherever they can. "We're running ourselves so hard that that space is the only time we have to ourselves each day," says Kathryn Streeby, director of marketing for sanitary products at Kohler, Kohler, Wis. So a better toilet just may make those few minutes alone more enjoyable.

When it comes to upgrades, she suggests switching from a two-piece toilet - with separate tank and bowl - to a seamless one-piece. These sleek toilets add clean lines to the bathroom, and there are fewer places for dirt to hide. Plus, Kohler's one-piece toilets typically include a contour seat with an easy-close lid that prevents slamming. "They're designed to be extremely comfortable," she says.

Her other picks for little luxuries include water-saving and comfort-height toilets. The latter, for instance, increases the toilet seat height to 17 inches from a typical 14 or 14.5. "It doesn't sound like that big of a difference, but from an ergonomic standpoint, you don't have that breakpoint in your knees," she says. For the eco-minded, the company's pressure-assist technology uses compressed air to save water without losing any flushing power.

But while these products add function to the bathroom, other high-end toilets seem to be competing for a spot on "MTV Cribs." Jemal Wright Bath Designs, Hollywood, Fla., for instance, creates custom toilets that look like they'd be just as appropriate in a museum exhibit as your bathroom. For $3,800 and up, Wright makes chrome-plated toilets in any color of the rainbow, and you can even order a sink to match. He believes these shiny creations give people another option for making a statement in the bathroom.

Wright's other line - Isis - is even more ambitious. He takes his chrome-plated toilets and hand-sets them with Swarovski crystals. For his first Isis toilet, he hand-set 53,000 crystals and sold the finished product for $75,000 to a professional athlete. "I'm not trying to mass produce them," he says. "It's art for your bathroom."

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