That’s Life Anew
WASHLET® and me
Bath & Wellness
|26/06/2025
Most people don’t have completely touch-free bathrooms filled entirely with TOTO products in their homes. But this is exactly what blog writer and Regional Sales Director West Matthias Kortenhorn decided to create when he purchased and renovated his new house. Learn why in this field report.
During the coronavirus pandemic, my wife and I bought a home that we wanted to completely renovate. We have a large family and need a lot of space, which is why we chose a property with two houses: a house for our five children and a connected bungalow primarily for the two of us parents to live in. But the bungalow only had one bathroom that we would share with our guests and visitors. Like everyone else during the pandemic, we noticed how much more conscious and particular we had become about hygiene in the bathroom. Instead of keeping this bathroom just to ourselves, we planned to share it with guests. We wanted to create the most hygienic bathroom possible – so we wouldn’t have to worry about cleanliness and hygiene.
This is why we decided to design an entirely touch-free bathroom. While this is still relatively unusual in private residences, it offers some major advantages. It minimises the number of things that people have to touch – for a far more hygienic bathroom. The space also stays cleaner longer, eliminating the need for frequent cleaning.
No sooner said than done: We renovated the bathroom and installed only TOTO products. These products feature state-of-the-art technologies while meeting the highest standards of cleanliness, hygiene, quality and durability. Another benefit is TOTO’s extraordinary design: elegant and simple, yet modern.
I’ve been using WASHLET® since 2009, which is why this was an essential for the bathroom from the outset. Once you’ve used WASHLET®, you don’t want to do without.
We chose NEOREST EW 2.0. The advantage of this model is that it includes all WASHLET® hygiene and comfort features. The heated seat, dryer, five adjustable and customisable spray types and odour absorption are just some of the features that were an absolute MUST-HAVE for us.
But the EW 2.0 has a number of other benefits, namely the automatic functionalities. WASHLET® activates the fully automatic flush once the user walks away from the toilet.
Like all TOTO toilets and WASHLET® models, this one includes TORNADO FLUSH. It thoroughly cleans every inch of the toilet bowl without producing any spray, preventing the spread of bacteria, germs and viruses.
The automatic sensor-based lid ensures even greater hygiene.
The lid raises automatically when someone approaches WASHLET® and lowers when they walk away.
WASHLET® is also ideal for our children. Our youngest son is three years old and can use it independently with just a little help. This made potty training much faster and easier. He’s so accustomed to using WASHLET® that he misses it when he’s not at home. Now, he says: “WASHLET® is the only real toilet”.
We chose a TOTO washbasin with the special CEFIONTECT glaze. The glaze is so smooth that it makes it difficult for dirt, bacteria and germs to stick. When I shave, for example, I just need a glass of water to rinse the washbasin – and it’s completely clean again. Another advantage is that the ceramic surface is extremely durable and won’t dull – even when it comes into contact with hair dye or other aggressive substances.
This makes TOTO washbasins last an extremely long time.
We chose a TOTO automatic faucet for our washbasin. The touch-free operation keeps water spots and dirt from building on the surface. Another important issue for us: saving water. Both TOTO WASHLET® and the automatic faucet (uses 2 litres) conserve water.
After washing your hands, the touch-free hand dryer ensures even greater hygiene in the bathroom. Hand towels get wet quickly when used by multiple people – providing an ideal place for bacteria to thrive. To avoid using piles of hand towels for guests, we chose to install the hand dryer. Sustainability was an important consideration here as having many guests using the bathroom would require many hand towels. As such, the hand dryer offers multiple advantages to us and our visitors.
Another important benefit of our TOTO bathroom: It’s so easy to keep clean. It’s very noticeable how clean this space stays with so many touch-free products. The smart surfaces and technologies from TOTO also play a major part.
And that’s not all – it’s so much easier to clean these products. All TOTO products are designed to clean with little effort and without aggressive cleansers (another plus when it comes to protecting the environment). We just use a microfibre cloth and cleaning products available at most stores.
Our guests are both surprised and impressed at the amount of technology in our bathroom. Many of them have never seen a bathroom like ours. Of course, it’s pretty unusual for a residential bathroom to have so many touch-free elements. We use high-tech products every day in pretty much every part of our lives, like robot vacuums, smart TVs and electric cars, to name a few. But people seem to care more about design than innovation when it comes to the bath.
TOTO offers great innovations for private and public bathrooms, helping to elevate these spaces and how people think about them.
Another thing that our friends and family really appreciate is the hygiene and cleanliness in the bathroom.
Our WASHLET® is always the main event. Many of our friends and acquaintances have purchased their own WASHLET® models for their bathrooms after using ours. They find the warm water spray and many other features and benefits to be surprisingly comfortable and refreshing – each and every day.
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