Thrive Hybrid Bath Tissue Review 2024 | Sustainable Bamboo and Recycled Paper Toilet Paper
The Top Line:
MIXED. Thrive Market Hybrid Bath Tissue is not our favorite toilet paper in terms of feel. We also do not like that it isn’t plastic-free. However, given that it is the cheapest toilet paper that we have reviewed, one which would almost pay for a Thrive Market membership, we cannot give it an outright ‘no.’
[Update 2024]: Thrive has replaced their toilet paper with Rosey by Thrive. We have yet to review this brand but just looking at the price of $9.99 for 8 rolls, it is one of the cheapest sustainable toilet paper options we have reviewed as we update prices for inflation.
The Breakdown:
Cost & Products: $6.29 for 12 rolls
How ‘Clean’ Is This? Pretty darn clean: the tissue uses fast, growing, less resource-dependent bamboo and recycled paper.
Dye: Yes, though it’s not chlorine-free
Packaging: 😔 It’s wrapped in plastic, sadly.
Purchasing & Shipping: Thrive Market operates with a membership feature, as well as a high minimum of $49 for shipping. We have been using items for 1 month (bigger writeup coming). Items did arrive rather quickly.
Coupons: Thrive Market offers a 1 month trial; after that, the cost is roughly $5 per month.
Extra Info: Thrive Market is a B-corporation. We love when companies make their sustainable mission a goal that shareholders will hold them accountable to.
What’s Your Impact? The Thrive Hybrid Bath Tissue is made from bamboo and recycled paper. Bamboo grows much faster than trees and require less water and other resources to grow before harvesting for production of toilet paper, thus making it more sustainable than the tree-based toilet paper.
The addition of recycled paper is a huge bonus as it uses post-consumer paper, getting more use out of paper and trees that have already been cut down.
The Experience
Context: We have used Scott, Seventh Generation, Cottonelle, Charmin and just about every drugstore brand that exists. We have also tried our fair share of bamboo and recycled paper at this point.
Feels… like tissue. Kind of similar to Brandless but harder to tear.
Can’t get over the airy feel. Not in a good way.
Bamboo makes the tp stronger, so we don’t worry much about mechanical failures but it does make us a little nervous.
The 2-ply doesn’t quite stick together — we show you a half-used roll in the images to illustrate. Kind of annoying.
Even with all the nuisances, Thrive Hybrid TP feels better than Scott tissue. .. at potentially the same or cheaper cost!
The Cost
One source suggests that the average person uses 100 rolls of toilet paper per year, so we are going to use that for cost comparison. We’ll compare mostly online brands which we’ve reviewed the past (and recently done a big bamboo toilet paper roundup of the best!), including Bippy, Go No. 2, Who Gives a Crap, PlantPaper, Better Way and Brandless. We compared Thrive to one drugstore brand, Quilted Northern.
Money Report: 😍 Holy Cheapers! Thrive Hyrbid Bamboo Bath Tissue crushes the competition here. Note that the $49 Thrive Market membership fee nearly pays for itself IF you buy ~100 rolls per year.
The Good:
✔ Made of both fast growing bamboo and recycled post consumer paper
✔ Cheap as chips — the bath tissue alone can nearly pay for a subscription to Thrive if you don’t mind the 2-ply mishap
The Bad:
✗ Wrapped in plastic
✗ Dyed white, though it is chlorine-free
✗ The paper feels wafer thin.
Our Recommendation:
MIXED. Thrive Market Hybrid Bath Tissue is not our favorite toilet paper in terms of feel. We also do not like that it isn’t plastic-free. However, given that it is the cheapest toilet paper that we have reviewed, one which would almost pay for a Thrive Market membership, we cannot give it an outright ‘no.’
We're on a mission to reduce our personal carbon footprint with small, hopefully easy, changes in our home to fight against climate change. This means we're looking for products that may be all natural, ideally zero waste, reusable or compostable -- while still being affordable!
