If you’ve ever had trouble, er, making a deposit into the porcelain bank, you may have come across a traditional toilet stool like a squatty potty in your search for relief.
Toilet stools are designed to correct the posture of our intestines when we use the restroom in order to provide an ergonomically correct and healthy defecating experience.
The posture that westernized toilets put us in when we use the restroom is not a natural posture, and therefore not conducive to a good “go”.
This is where toilet stools come in; they correct our internal posture by elevating our feet while we use the toilet.
A problem that most toilet stool users encounter with traditional toilet stools is that the device itself can be quite unseemly and bulky, taking up a lot of space in the bathroom and causing an eyesore.
This is just one issue that the Stuul toilet stool was created for.
The Stuul is a set of identical posture-correcting toilet stools for your bathroom that accomplish all the same health benefits of a traditional toilet stool, without taking up tons of room and looking awkward in your space.
The best feature of Stuul is that the two stools can be collapsed and converted into a fashionable, stylish piece of sculpture until you need to separate and use them again.
The Stuul has a luxurious feel and design that fits into a carefully designed space with class, and actually elevates the look of the bathroom.
Key Features
Aesthetic
The Stuul’s sleek, geometric design is quite a bit more attractive than any of its competitors. It also has a crosshatch grid texture that gives it a modern, polished look.
Available in five different colors, there’s a Stuul for every space.
Design
With a collapsible design, the Stuul’s is much more compact than other toilet stools. The two stools can be combined into one piece that takes up very little space. It also has the ability to be adjusted differently than other stools, because the two feet can be put into different positions for more customizable comfort.
Material
The Stuul is made of an innovative material that can withstand most cleaning products and won’t scratch floors. The Stuul also has a high strength-to-weight ratio, meaning that it’s durable yet also very lightweight.
Additionally, the high-tech material that Stuul is composed of is warm and soft to the touch, making it more comfortable to use than regular plastic.
Eco-Consciousness
Impressively, the Stuul boasts a 100% climate neutral composition, meaning that greenhouse gases are kept to an absolute minimum during production and are offset with environmental protection measures.
It is sustainably produced and also 100% recyclable with no loss.
Technical Specs
Dimensions
Each of the Stuul’s separate stools has the following dimensions:
Height: 19cm (7.5in)
Length: 26cm (10.2in)
Width: 22.4cm (8.8in)
Construction
The Stuul is composed of a high-density particle foam, which is quite durable and very lightweight. The exact weight of the product is not specified.
What We Love Most
The most obvious and unique feature of the Stuul is its attractive design.
The Stuul is the first toilet stool product designed with aesthetic at the forefront of its features, and has an innovative shape that hasn’t been seen before in any of its competitors.
Because of its sleek design, the Stuul does not look like a toilet stool and doesn’t take up floor space like traditional toilet stools. And due to its compacting form, the Stuul is not all that obvious as a toilet accessory.
It’s more discreet and sleek. It is an unobtrusive way to ensure that your toilet habits are healthy, and it’s aesthetically attractive to boot.
Another point for the Stuul is its environmentally-conscious production. We love that the makers of the Stuul kept their climate impact low, and focused on sustainability when creating this product.
Not only is the Stuul 100% recyclable with no loss, the manufacturers ensured that the shortest routes were taken in distribution of the products, meaning even car emissions were kept at a minimum.
Even further, the Stuul is made of 90% pure air, which results in conservation of materials and conservation of energy when transporting the products.
Any Cons?
The only downside to the Stuul toilet stool could be in its price. The innovative, high-tech, and environmentally conscious material that the Stuul is made of, along with it’s very sleek and stylish design, plain and simply increases the price.
At about 90€, (approximately $100), the Stuul is more expensive than many of its competitors.
However, it’s not like that price is unwarranted or gouging in any way. The Stuul might be in the upper-tier of price-points for toilet stools, but it’s meant to compete with those like-priced toilet stool.
If you want something sleek, light, and ethically built, you’d be hard-pressed to consider the price of the Stuul a con. But again, it’s the only negative we could really think of.
From Daniel Kövary and Ralph Bremenkamp
We had a chance to catch up with Daniel and Ralph, the Founder and Designers of the Stuul, to ask them a few questions about their amazing toilet stool and the plans for the future:
Q) The toilet stool market is a competitive one these days. What piqued your interest in designing a product that competes with some of the big names like the squatty potty for example?
A) We are big fans of the brand you mentioned and are enthusiastic about the purely health-promoting functionality of the toilet stools. However, all toilet stools out there have a massive design problem: you immediately associate them with serious illnesses and they have the charm of care furniture for the elderly.
So although many people recognize the health benefits of a toilet stool, they have a problem with placing a conventional toilet stool in the bathroom. They are ashamed of it and do not want to spoil their bathroom. The STUUL on the other hand is not recognizable as a toilet stool. It is a neutral design object and is more reminiscent of high end consumer products.
Q) What made you go with the merging design of the Stuul, as opposed to a single piece of material like traditional toilet stools?
A) It was very important to us to completely dissolve the classic form of a stool. We wanted to break the chain of associations. The first look at a classic toilet stool makes the observer wonder which intestinal diseases the owner is likely to suffer from. When looking at our product, he only asks himself what purpose it serves, but he does not immediately associate it with hemorrhoids or geriatric care.
This was only possible by developing a completely new two-part design.
But we have also entirely questioned the choice of material. We chose a material that is mainly used in industry, but which has incredibly good properties – expanded polypropylene. This material makes our product very light and pleasant to touch, and it can also be used without hesitation in sensitive areas such as toy manufacture or the food industry. But the best thing is that it is 100% materially recyclable.
Q) What aspect of the Stuul are you most proud of between the environmentally-conscious build and materials or the unique design? Or is there something else? And Why?
A) Both aspects are very important. The design aspect is especially important for customer acceptance, while the sustainability aspect is of enormous personal importance for us founders. We didn’t just want to bring another mass product to market, but also to keep our ecological footprint as small as possible.
Q) What are you plans for future iterations of the Stuul or other bathroom or toilet-based products? Anything new being worked on behind the scenes you’d like to share?
A) Our full focus is currently on marketing the STUUL. However, we are convinced – and the success of the product category “toilet stools” mentioned at the beginning of this article shows it quite clearly – that we can solve a real problem here. A problem that we humans have created for ourselves. Most people in the western world use the toilet in a very unnatural and unhealthy way every day – something that was intended quite differently by nature. We want to continue to work on addressing this problem and solving it with innovative and beautiful products.
Our Thoughts
All-in-all, the Stuul toilet stool is an excellent product that accomplishes more than its competitors can.
It is a fully functional set of toilet stools combined into an attractive sculpture that isn’t an eyesore and doesn’t take up two feet of bathroom space.
The Stuul was designed holistically with every important factor in mind.
It incorporates the practical aspects of health, wellness, and functionality while also incorporating elements of aesthetic, comfort, and environmental sustainability. This is more than what can be said for the Squatty Potty and other similar toilet stools that are mostly functional without being fashionable or sustainable.
The makers of the Stuul go above and beyond to ensure sustainability, encouraging customers to recycle the product in the most effective way.
They invite customers who, for whatever reason (though we can’t think of one) want to dispose of the product to return the product directly to the production site so that it may be introduced back into the material cycle and reused.
Even further, the Stuul offsets any harmful emissions produced during manufacturing by participating in several climate change prevention projects.
The Stuul has truly thought of everything, from its environmental impact to the way that consumers will incorporate it into their space.
It is a product worth investing in, because it accomplishes the health benefits of a toilet stool while also providing something that is beautiful to look at and completely unobtrusive.
The Stuul is at the forefront of innovation in this market and we expect to see great things from this company in the future.