There are several options with it comes bidets. They vary in complexity, efficiency, and cost.

What options are there for bidets? There are several different types of bidets available. They include, spray bottles, hand wands, bidet toilet seats, and stand alone bidets. Each of these options has are designed to clean a user’s hind quarters but they accomplish this in different ways.

In this blog post I do my best to break down the options mentioned above and explain when each might be appropriate.

Spray Bottles

The most basic of all “bidet” options is the spray bottle. This approach is essentially what you’re thinking. We’re talking about a plastic bottle filled with water that has a long curved nozzle built into the top of it. The user places the nozzle under their derriere and squeezes the bottle. The water comes out of the nozzle with enough pressure to clean the dirty area.

This is about as basic as it gets. This approach is primarily used for “away from home” bowel movements such as when traveling or at work. In all honesty, I have never used one of these. But I can see the reasoning behind using one. After you’ve used a bidet for any amount of time, it’s hard to drop a deuce without having a bidet to assist with the clean up. You just don’t feel clean.

Obviously there are several drawbacks to this approach. First, you have to remember, or leave yourself enough time, to fill the bottle with water before sitting down and getting to business. This may not always be realistic to have time or to remember. If your sink is not right next your toilet, you’re going to have to risk doing the penguin waddle over to the sink with your pants around your ankles. If you’re not careful you could trip or worse, drop a dingleberry on your undies. Very risky indeed!

It’s also kind of questionable what you do with the long nozzle piece if it becomes soiled. Are you just going to wipe the thing off and put it back in your bag? Do you somehow scrub it with soap and your hand? Do you just use the bottle until the end gets dirty and then throw the entire product away? Lots of questions with very few pleasant answers.

My advice when considering squeeze bottle products to spray your buttocks… Make sure you remember to fill it up with water before popping a squat. You don’t want to be waddling to the sink. And, have a plan for how you’re going to store or dispose of the tip when it inevitably gets poop on it.

The Hand Wand

The hand wand is basically like a glorified spray bottle. The advantage is you don’t have to remember to fill up a bottle before sitting down on the commode. The wand is installed to the water supply line to your toilet tank using a “T” fitting. This means you can forget about the penguin waddle mentioned above.

If you’ve ever used a hand wand at your kitchen sink to blast left overs off a plate, then you’re just about ready to use a hand wand bidet. You’ll be spraying off a different type of left over and instead of a plate it will be your butt.

The disadvantages to the hand wand is that if it gets soiled, it’s not as easily cleaned or disposed of. Because the wand is hard wired into your water supply line, you can’t just walk it over to a sink for cleaning. You’ll want to keep some Clorox wipes handy or something similar to clean with.

The other main disadvantage is that the water coming out of the hand wand is likely to be pretty cold. At least with the spray bottle you could use warm water if your bowels give you enough time to do so.

Hand wand bidets are pretty common features in a lot of public places in countries other than the United States. I was once in tiny restaurant bathroom in an Asian country and there was a hand wand connected to the sink and strung across the wall over to the toilet. I confess I did not touch the thing, let along use it to spray my hinder regions. But it was available had I felt more compelled.

Bidet Toilet Seats

The modern bidet toilet seat can range from basic and inexpensive to deluxe and pricey. On the low end of this scale, the seat simply has a nozzle built into the back of the toilet seat. When a valve is opened on the water line, the nozzle begins to spray water towards the users buttocks. These low priced bidet seats are very utilitarian and they get the job done.

On the high end of the price scale, bidet toilet seats come equipped with all sorts of features that make the bidet experience not just pleasant, but luxurious. I wouldn’t say you absolutely need all of these features to have a great bidet experience, but the more the merrier in my opinion.

Adjustable Nozzle

Let’s start with the business part of the toilet seat bidet… the nozzle functionality. Almost all of these higher end bidet seats have an adjustable nozzle mechanism and a way for the user to control the position of the nozzle; often it’s a remote control with lots of buttons. While the water is spraying you can move that nozzle forward and back so it can be the most effective.

Oscillating Nozzle

Most of these seats also have an oscillating nozzle which means it doesn’t just go forward and back, it will continuously go side to side slightly. It doesn’t go wide enough to make a mess, but it does a great job of getting the sides of your “central canyon”. A really nice feature.

Front Nozzle (for the ladies)

And additional nozzle feature for many of the higher end seats is a separate nozzle for females to use more towards the front. I can’t personally speak to the effectiveness of this nozzle but I can tell you a lot of women say a lot of good things about these front nozzles. Just know that it’s a feature that available and if you’re a woman, or live with a woman, who likes to be clean, this might be a must have feature.

Heated Water

Since we’ve just covered the nozzle features, it’s appropriate to cover what’s coming out of the nozzles… the water. Let me just say right up front, YOU DEFINITELY WANT A BIDET THAT SUPPLIES WARM WATER THROUGH THE NOZZLE. This isn’t really negotiable in my experience.

Every once in a while one of our kids will play a cruel joke where they turn the water heater off on our bidet. It’s a pretty shocking experience to have cold water suddenly spraying your hinder region. Do yourself a huge favor and make sure when you get a bidet toilet seat, that you get one with a water heater built in!

Heated Seat

While we’re talking about hot water, let’s talk about heated toilet seats. Most of these modern bidet toilet seats have heated seats. When turned ON, the seat is always hot so as soon as you sit down your cheeks are immediately feeling the love.

This is a very popular feature in our home during the winter months when it’s a little cooler in our house, especially at night. One word of warning here… you’re going to love the heated seat so much that you may find yourself spending more time than usual on the throne.

Deodorizing Fan

Have you ever heard the saying “that guy thinks he’s so great that his poop doesn’t stink?” Well with the higher end bidet seats your poop really won’t stink… as much. Not all of the bidets have this feature but if you live with someone and share a bathroom with them you should definitely make sure to get this feature. You’ll immediately notice the difference.

It isn’t a perfect feature, you’re still going to leave some stink in the bathroom when you walk out. But I’d say it cuts it down about 75%. If my wife walks into the bathroom after I’ve done my duty, will she know that I’ve been in there? Yes. But can she stand to stay in there and brush her teeth or do her hair? Most of the time. 😉

Drying Fan

Almost all of these modern toilet seats have a “drying fan”. I’ve tried several of them and I’d personally call these fans “waste of time fans”. They really don’t do much. The idea is that you can turn this fan on after a wash cycle, and when it’s done you should be able to pull your pants up and not have to use any toilet paper to dry off. Sadly it doesn’t work. I wouldn’t let the drying fan be much of a factor in your decision to buy a bidet seat. If the one you want to get has one, great. If it doesn’t, you’re not missing out on much.

I know I’ve spent a lot of time on these bidet toilet seat features. But in my personal opinion, these seats are the best. Every home in America should have one. I think society would be happier as a whole if every home had one of these. I’d consider voting for a politician who ran on a “bidet in every home” platform.

Stand Along Bidets

The final option is the stand alone bidet. Basically you put a toilet sized bidet next to your existing toilet. After you do your duty on the toilet, you transfer your dirty self over to the stand alone bidet to clean off.

These are pretty popular in Europe and Asian countries but unless your bathroom was built with this option in mind, you might as well forget about this option.

Getting one of these installed in your bathroom that wasn’t designed for one of these is very difficult. It involves tearing out flooring, cutting into septic lines and adding a new line, and routing additional water lines to the stand along bidet. Your talking about thousands of dollars and at least multiple days of work; possibly weeks.

These types of bidets do not work any better than the bidet toilet seats mentioned above. They also lack many of the features and convenience of the bidet toilet seats. It just doesn’t make any sense to go with one of these. In my mission to bring a bidet to every home, I can’t in good conscience recommend a stand alone bidet.

Bottom Line

Bidets are awesome and there are several different types of bidets you can invest in. Each of the types has their advantages and disadvantages for different situations. The primary question to me is if you need one in your home or one for when you’re traveling. If it’s for your home, my strong opinion is to go with the modern bidet toilet seat.