In a world of overconsumption, the shelf life of a commodity is even longer than the time people keep their interest. I wonder if you have noticed that fewer and fewer towels are used to wash your face, and more and more people are starting to use disposable face towels.

In a world of overconsumption, the shelf life of a product is even longer than the time people keep their interest.

I wonder if you have noticed that fewer and fewer towels are used to wash your face, and more and more people are starting to use disposable face towels.

is not just a face towel, our lives seem to be surrounded by one-time.

Even if you are not on business, some people start wearing disposable underwear, disposable socks, and use disposable razors. In the past, we used plastic bags from supermarkets to pack garbage, but now we use disposable garbage bags. There are fewer and fewer rags in the kitchen, and they are replaced by disposable kitchen paper and disposable rags.

In short, although modern people lack sex, they have begun to live a one-time life.

This issue let’s talk about these disposable supplies.

1

The first disposable products we started to use on a large scale must be disposable bowls, chopsticks, cups, tablecloths and other tableware supplies. It is no surprise that these disposable tableware are popular. After all, their characteristics of discarding and not cleaning are reduced on the one hand, while also reducing procurement costs. This is really suitable for merchants who run small restaurants.

What kind of breakfast stalls or night markets are like late-night snacks. Customers often have the need to pack and take them away. Disposable tableware is of course the best option. Especially those who are like my family who are holding food while walking, there is only one option for disposable tableware.

Even at that time, some local governments vigorously advocated the use of disposable tableware, which looks cleaner and more hygienic products, in order to prevent the spread of epidemics and other reasons.

In addition to takeaway restaurants, there is another use scenario for guests at home. In the past, relatives and friends visited each other frequently, especially during festivals, where there were many customers. Generally, the home did not prepare so many bowls, chopsticks and cups, so they all used disposable tableware.

When I was a child, whenever the guests came to my family, my parents would ask me to go out and buy two bottles of drinks and disposable cups.

In fact, the popularity of disposable tableware back then also brought about a rumor. That is to say, Japanese people are reluctant to use their own trees, so they all buy disposable chopsticks from China. After using up the chopsticks, they will make them into paper and sell them to the Chinese at a high price.

This story and the Chinese and Japanese primary school students' summer camp are also the originator of the Internet rumors.

Another thing that drives the disposable product boom is hotel chains.

The domestic economic chain hotel was originally modeled after the development of foreign motel templates, and was upgraded and transformed on this basis.

And the "six small" disposable products including toothpaste, toothbrush, slippers, combs, shower lotion, and shampoo have become the standard equipment for chain hotels, and it is still an important reference indicator for measuring hotel quality in the early stages. The use scenario of

disposable products has been broken again and spans multiple categories. In fact, this is also a critical period when the concept of "one-time" can be popularized on a wider scale.

People gradually discovered that everything can be used at once.

In general, I think that this type of disposable product can be classified as "supplementary functional" products, and they often have the characteristics of being convenient and fast and suitable for emergency use in specific scenarios.

Like the disposable underwear that more and more people will buy today, in the early days, it was more products used by women to cope with special periods such as physiology and production. Later, with the change of consumer demand, especially in the current situation of tourism and business trips, the advantages of disposable underwear have been further magnified, and its own quality has been continuously optimized during the application process.

Compared with the above products, the emergence of disposable facial towels is more subversive in meaning.It not only has the supplementary functionality of the above disposable products, but it gradually has some substitution in the matter of washing your face.

2

It is obvious that more and more young people are used to washing their faces with face towels. For this reason, I think face towels can be classified as the representative of "alternative" disposable products.

Before this, I believe that most people are used to washing their faces with towels or directly washing with their hands and then wipe them with dry towels.

No matter which method you use, it is a common way to wash your face anyway. Even if you do idle work in many places, towels are a standard gift.

But if I say that the towel used to wash my face now is likely to be replaced by a disposable face wash towel, isn’t it a bit unbelievable?

Actually, this is not an exaggeration.

in the Times Weekly titled "How long have you changed your towels? Are all the towel sellers anxious? In the report of 》, it mentioned that the towel market is much more depressed than in the past.

Source: Times Weekly reporter

Salesman in charge of towel sales in a supermarket said that the turnover in the past month was 20,000, but now it is only 7,000.

The overall operating income of China's towel companies above the designated size showed a downward trend, with a significant decline in 2018. The towel companies above the designated size achieved operating income of 36.15 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 37.62%; in 2020, 214 towel companies above the designated size achieved operating income of 30.504 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.2%.

At first I felt a bit counterintuitive, after all, I have always used towels.

But if you think about it carefully, it is not an exaggeration.

Take myself as an example. Although I have not used a face towel yet, the kitchen paper and disposable rags in the kitchen are basically on my regular purchase list.

Because cleaning the kitchen was too troublesome, I used to use rags and needed at least two. One is used to wipe the stove, and the other is used to wipe the floor. Everyone knows that there are a lot of oil stains in the kitchen. After I wipe the stove and floor, I still need to wash two rags. Sometimes if the ground is too dirty, you even need to wash it twice or three times.

I don’t even want to brush the bowl, and I even have to wash the rag!

so when I first used kitchen paper, I couldn't live without it. Just wipe it and throw it away.

In fact, the logic of the face towel is similar.

Face towels are derived from maternal and child products and belong to the category of cotton towels. Basically, if you have children at home, cotton towels are a must-stock product. Compared to towels, they are not only very absorbent, but also very skin-friendly.

At the beginning, I thought that even if the face towel is easy to use, I wouldn’t it be wasted if I throw it away once? But in fact, it may not be possible to calculate it.

In the past, we would use a towel for a long time, but in fact, towels also have a lifespan. After using them for a long time, there will be bacteria.

So there are only two options for towels, either wash them frequently or change them frequently. If you wash frequently, it will be troublesome. If you change it frequently, it is no different from washing a face towel.

is also the reason. More and more people simply use face washing towels to wash their faces, and towels are only used to wipe their hands.

But think about it carefully, if the wash towel's face function can be replaced by a wash towel, will the wipe hand function be replaced by a wipe hand towel?

I don’t think it’s impossible. At least I am in the bathroom of the mall, and it is very convenient to use disposable hand towels. In theory, there is no big difference between wiping a hand towel and kitchen paper.

When the usage scenarios are encircled by multiple uses, it is no surprise that the market of the towel industry is encroached on.So many towels simply began to go high-end, and one can sell for 50 or 60 yuan.

This enters a vicious cycle.

In the past, the three or five towels were getting fewer and fewer in the market. The cheap ones were not good. It was good and it made people feel that it was too expensive. In the end, it was better to choose a face wash towel, which was convenient and comfortable.

Disposable products are actually the most criticized thing about waste, especially from our previous generation of life philosophy.

In the past, the principle that people followed when using things was that they would not change until they were broken. It is difficult to accept to throw it away once. Especially the towels for washing your face, they can be thrown away after washing them once, which is unimaginable to many people.

But in the face of convenience and speed, waste seems a bit insignificant.

3

Take plastic bags and garbage bags as examples.

At the beginning, when people went shopping for groceries, they basically didn’t use plastic bags, but brought a cloth bag or canvas bag.

But because plastic bags are too cheap, it is really the case that plastic bags in the vegetable market are standard, not to mention the popularity of supermarkets later, the plastic bags attached are big and sturdy, and have become the favorite of countless people.

So, everyone not only started to use plastic bags, but also fell in love with stocking up on plastic bags. After all, the use scenarios of plastic bags are too rich. There are so many plastic bags for buying groceries and shopping in supermarkets that you don’t have to buy them specifically. My grandma used to be a fan of stocking up plastic bags. In my impression, many families have never specially purchased plastic bags, and they are all bought with gifts. After the supermarket plastic bags were charged, the situation improved slightly.

But even plastic bags cannot escape the fate of being replaced by other disposable peers.

An important function of the plastic bag I got when I bought something is to use it as a garbage bag at home. But later, a special garbage bag was subdivided, which was more convenient than a plastic bag. It can be easily put on the trash can by pulling and pulling.

At the beginning, many people did not accept special garbage bags. After all, they felt that the plastic bags at home were enough. What family actually had to spend money to buy plastic bags to store garbage?

But as time goes by, everyone found that the specifications of the plastic bags attached to the purchase are not uniform, and they stock up on a bunch of plastic bags, and often there is no place to put them. Coupled with the subsequent plastic restriction order, more and more people finally accepted the option of garbage bags.

By 2019, the market for garbage bags has reached 250 billion, which shows how many people are using it.

or even the last single garbage bag cannot meet many consumer needs. Because the garbage bag needs to be filled with some leftovers of soup, the thin garbage bags that used to be leaked easily. Today's garbage bags have simply been developed with thick, even with drawstrings, which are easy to carry, and can be used as garbage bags.

and disposable underwear, disposable socks, etc., all follow the same logic.

I had a friend who came to my house to live with and used disposable underwear. He said that he not only travels on business, but also likes to use it on a daily basis. The main reason is that I feel that hand-washing underwear is very troublesome, and when it rains, it is difficult to dry underwear, so I simply use it as disposable, which is particularly convenient.

4

You can see that, unlike the poor quality of disposable products in the past, disposable products are now very good at least in terms of user experience.

This is actually a problem of manufacturing, supply chain, market progress and growth. Market demand dilutes costs and the process itself is getting better and better. Everyone does not have particularly outrageous requirements for disposable products, basically it is enough to be used and hygienic.

For example, if I make a T-shirt for basement now, the quality is about to be machine washed three to five times. If I sell 70 per piece, most people will definitely think I am crazy. What if I sell it to 30? There must be someone who has begun to feel that it is not unacceptable.

If the market continues to grow and the cost is further reduced, can the selling price be reduced to 5 yuan? Perhaps this will eventually become a living habit for many people.

Think carefully, the popularity of one-time life is essentially related to the changes in our consumption habits.

Although it is really rare for people to spend 70 yuan to buy a T-shirt that can only be worn three or five times. But there is no doubt that people are becoming more and more accustomed to the fact that summer clothes last at most one to two years.

I also mentioned in the fast fashion issue that many clothes are produced only for seasonal use.

In the past, we bought a lot of things, but by default, they only need to be replaced if they are broken, and they can be used for at least ten or eight years.

so when I add a life span for consumer products today, my thinking cannot be converted.

such as non-stick pan. When I told my mother that the service life of this thing was about 1-2 years, my mother was shocked. After all, in her impression, a pot should last forever, but she didn't know that there was a pot that could only take 8 times of the British Prime Minister's reign.

There are also electronic products, not to mention. Obviously, for many people, the performance of many electronic products is overflowing. But for new functions, even new colors and new appearances, the old ones must be replaced.

Count it carefully. There are actually only a handful of things that can be used for ten or eight years.

In the omnipresent modern life, it seems that everything is a one-time and everything can be sold every day.

Remove food, clothing and use, everyone adds a one-time friend on WeChat, and the chat history only records the time you added him. I followed the one-time serialization and didn't know when I would abandon the pit. Set a one-time flag, today I say I will definitely lose weight, and tomorrow I will show off two cups of hand-made lemon tea.

talked about a one-time relationship, and vowed to each other in the previous second, and flew away the next. I was watching a one-time video, feeling all kinds of information whizzing through my brain, and then stroked my fingers to the next one.

In the poem "Slow in the past", there is a very famous comment: People in the past are broken and always want to practice. Nowadays, people are broken and always want to change it.

Maybe even the commenters didn't expect that people nowadays don't have to wait until the things break down, just because they don't like them.

After all, in a world of overconsumption, the shelf life of a product is even longer than the time people keep their interest.