- Your first reaction to a pee cloth
was that it was kind of gross.
And mine was too.
I was like, "That's a little nasty."
(playful music)
This is my show, gosh, darn.
What's up friends?
My name is Miranda and this is "Miranda in the Wild."
So you've probably heard me talk a lot about poop
but you haven't heard me talk about pee.
In my experience in the outdoors,
I have often just been the type of person
that drip dries after I pee.
I don't tend to carry toilet paper with me
and for a long time, that was just how I managed going
to the bathroom.
A couple of years ago though,
I heard about a pee rag,
which is exactly what it sounds like.
It's something that you use to dab yourself
if you're a person who squats when you pee
and then you just hang it on the outside of your pack
and you let it dry.
If you think that that's really gross.
I totally understand.
And I kind of felt the same way when I learned
about a pea rag, but it's actually
this like awesomely revolutionary thing
that you can use to feel way cleaner, way more hygienic.
And also, it's a lot more leave-no-trace friendly
than packing out toilet paper
or obviously, burying your toilet paper in the ground.
So when I first learned about a pee cloth,
it was actually recommended to me to use a bandana.
The problem with carrying a bandana
was that I didn't always remember which one was my pee rag
and which one was my cloth for drying dishes.
I don't know if I wanna tell that to people.
So I started using a bandana
and from there looked into using scraps of fabric.
And recently I learned about a brand called Kula Cloth
which is the first ever technical pee rag.
I wanna be clear that this video is not sponsored
by Kula in any way.
I'm just really intrigued at how something
like a scrap of fabric has turned
into this entire community and a company.
So I wanna talk to Anastasia the owner
and founder of Kula Cloth
about her ideas behind the technical pee rag.
Kula Cloth. (giggles)
So Kula Cloth, obviously I know what a Kula Cloth is now.
I have mine here, but like what is Kula Cloth
and when was it founded?
And like, what was the big launching point
for creating a technical pee cloth?
- So Kula Cloth is the very first of its kind.
It is an intentionally designed anti-microbial pee cloth
for anybody who squats when they pee.
I officially launched the business in July of 2017.
The idea for Kula came to me on a backpacking trip in 2016.
I guess I have to backtrack a little bit.
I was on a personal backpacking trip
of my own, and I was really frustrated
by how much toilet paper I just saw sort of discarded.
So I came home and I found an article
about using a pee cloth.
And quite honestly,
my very first reaction was that is disgusting.
That is so gross, like who can do that?
But I was a backpacking instructor.
And so I remember thinking to myself, okay,
I should at least try it.
So I went out and I bought this really ugly piece of fabric,
attached it to my backpack
and went out on a backpacking trip
and was shocked to find that I loved it.
It was a total game changer.
I was no longer hauling in and out a bunch of toilet paper.
I felt much cleaner and more comfortable
because I wasn't like drip drying.
So then sort of fast forward,
I'm on this backpacking trip with my husband
in the Wind River Range in Wyoming.
And as a joke, I had this sort of ridiculous idea
that I was gonna take these photographs
of my pee cloth in a variety of beautiful settings.
And it's right at sunset.
And I take this ugly scrap of blue fabric
and I position it on my trekking pole.
And I'm getting into position
for this like dramatic pee cloth photo.
And I can't even make this up.
It was like an idea just sort of pops into my head.
And it said, why isn't that a real piece of gear?
I remember thinking, I wonder if I designed
this intentionally, would more people be less squeamish
about the idea and then could it also open
up this bigger conversation around hygiene as well.
And that was sort of thinking back
to my own first backpacking trip
where I had felt uncomfortable asking
like how do I handle peeing on a backpack trip or on a hike?
And I went home after this backpacking trip
and initially sort of experienced a lot of excitement
around this idea until I started researching
buying fabric and how to make a product and start a company.
And very quickly, all of these fears
that I had around leaving my job or starting a business
and looking stupid or failing,
these sort of very limiting beliefs started to pop up.
And I kind of shut myself down before I let myself
even get started.
And I started to question whether or not
those fears were real or if they were imagined.
And I started taking little steps after that
to pursue this idea that I had had about this pee cloth.
Now there were some things that I kind of had to get over
in the beginning, such as I don't know how sew.
This is my very, very first attempt at sewing a Kula Cloth.
So as you can see- - That's great.
- As you can see, it's not really even one shape.
It's more of like multiple shapes.
There's a lot going on here.
It didn't go well at first, but I just kept practicing.
Now, here we are, I guess three years later,
and it's sort of morphed from this into this.
And that's kind of a dramatic transformation.
(both laughing)
- I don't wanna bad mouth your first Kula
but it's definitely grown a lot.
- It has and this one is really still special to me
because it really represents that all ideas start somewhere.
And I mean I didn't just all of a sudden
have an idea for a pee cloth
and then this just sort of popped out of nowhere.
It has been this evolution.
And for me, I think the most important part
has been just believing it was possible the whole time
and not needing to know all the answers,
just trusting that they were going to come find me.
- Now that you've mastered the Kula Cloth technique
or now that you have this business off the ground,
I guess I would love to hear like what makes
a Kula Cloth technical.
- The fabric is specifically designed for hygiene.
So it is a anti-microbial fabric.
It has a waterproof side
which is the print side, and then it has an absorbent side.
Then the other parts of the Kula are the label and the snap.
There is a strip of a super high tech,
retro-reflective thread.
And so you'll be able to find it
in the middle of the night with your headlamp.
And then I guess the final part
of the Kula is that we do print this really cute art on it.
All of our prints are done in collaboration
with artists who we pay for their design.
So they're usually receiving a commission.
If it's not done in collaboration with an artist,
it's very often done in collaboration with a nonprofit.
And so a portion of proceeds
are then going back into a nonprofit.
When I had the idea for this business,
I remember people telling me nobody would ever want to buy
a pee cloth with art on it.
And I felt very strongly that art needed to be on it
because there is nothing shameful
or embarrassing or gross about having to go to the bathroom.
And I think the more that we can talk about that
without shame being associated
with having to pee and the more we can normalize that
then the more likely people are going
to spend more time outside.
That, to me, is really, really exciting,
knowing that people are getting out on the trail
more comfortably and that hygiene issues
are not a barrier for access.
- There is definitely a leave-no-trace principle
to Kula as well.
Do you think that that's like part
of the conversation piece when people carry
a Kula with them? - Absolutely.
The conversations that happen around Kula
are usually about leave-no-trace.
For some people, Kula might be their very first introduction
to the concept of leave-no-trace or zero waste.
And if this little piece of gear can introduce people
to those ideas, then I think that's a win for everybody.
What Kula has really taught me
is that not knowing how to do things
is not a barrier to be able to actually do them.
Even if you don't know how to do something,
somebody out there does know how to do it.
That, to me, has been the most meaningful part
of all of this.
It's like the gear is cool and having a business
is fun but like genuinely connecting with people
is what I love the most.
- Well, Anastasia, thank you so much.
If someone wanted to find out more information
about a Kula Cloth, where would they do that?
- So you can do that on our website,
which is kulacloth.com.
Kula is also being carried by REI now.
And you can also follow us on Instagram.
- Awesome. Great.
And, of course, say hi to your fellow Kula users
on the trail, right?
- Yeah, give them the wink.
- That's right. The wink.
All right. Well, thank you so much.
I really appreciate it.
And I'll talk to you later.
- Thanks Miranda.
- I hope you all enjoyed this conversation
as much as I enjoyed having it.
If you haven't used a pee rag before,
do you think that you'll try it out now?
If you have any of your own fun stories
from peeing on the trail, leave those in the comments below.
And if you haven't already, go ahead and like this video,
hit subscribe and I will see you all in the wild
(burps)
Sorry. (laughs)
I'm so sorry.
- [Man] You really zoomed into that one.