Soft? My @&$£! (Nouvelle Soft Recycled Toilet Roll)

Member Name: angeelu

Product:	Nouvelle Soft Recycled Toilet Roll
Date:	06/02/03 (232 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Recycled

Disadvantages: Not soft, Old fashioned design, Overall poor quality

Always on the look out for a bargain, and willing to try anything at least once, Tesco's recent offer of Buy One Get One Free on 4 packs of Nouvelle toilet roll seemed like a worthwhile buy. Nouvelle is not a brand I had previously tried before, but the through the packaging the toilet rolls looked good quality, and squishing the pack they felt fairly soft so I bought them...

Nouvelle is fairly easy to spot on the shelves - the packaging is quite distinct with the Nouvelle logo in white across the top of a mainly blue packet, with a sun-like daisy rising from between two blue hill type curves. The packaging claims the product to be:
"Soft, Quilted and Recycled"

Soft???
Immediately upon taking the first roll from the packet it seemed apparant that it wasn't actually all that soft. I'm not one to stick with one regular brand and have used allsorts of makes in the past, from Tesco Own Brand, to Andrex, to Double Velvet and probably a few others, but out of all I can remember this is definitely least soft to the touch.

Nouvelle advertise their website on the packaging of the toilet roll - www.softonyou.co.uk - again this portrays an image that the product is going to be really quite soft - quite misleading... In their favour howver, Nouvelle do offer a 'Softness Guarantee' in that if it's not soft enough for you you can return the product for a refund on your purchase and the postage price.

Quilted???
The paper itself is embossed with what can only be described as a 'frilly' pattern, which is presumably the quiltedness. The pattern consists of diamonds, hearts and flowers and looks somewhat old fashioned. The fact that it is 'quilted' seems to make little difference to the quality of the paper - it still feels cheap and rough...

Recycled???
I'm all for using recycled products when possible, so Nouvelle gets the thumbs up for effort as their product is
made from 100% recycled high quality paper. No - this doesn't mean it's made from once-used loo roll - it's as it says - recycled paper. In addition, Nouvelle also advertise on their packaging that they support EnCams - the environmental public awareness campaign. It seems Nouvelle take the environment seriously, and that can only be commended. This message is also conveyed through their website which contains a variety of educational environment related information for children.

The Verdict:
A 4-pack of Nouvelle toilet tissue was priced at £1.69 - this is a very similar price to most other standard and shops own brand toilet rolls, so on price it competes well. The buy one get one free offer also made this a good buy. However, the product itself is somewhat of a let-down - it's certainly not soft and feels quite rough when used. The old-fashioned design on the paper also adds another negative aspect to the paper - whilst I'm sure the vast majority of people aren't really interested in the design on their toilet roll, when it's another thing on the list of things that aren't good about it the product certainly seems inferior to the majority of other brands. Definitely not one that will be added to the shopping trolley in future!

Sorry Nouvelle - you only get one star in this review!

Summary: