The Kula Cloth Interview

Anastasia Allison is the founder and owner of Kula Cloth. I was lucky enough to be able to chat with her, and she shared all about the Kula Cloth, her experiences, art, and the great outdoors.

What is a Kula Cloth, and who is it for?

So, a Kula Cloth is an antimicrobial pee cloth for anyone who squats when they pee! I have one right here. [Laughs and holds up a Kula Cloth] It is a Leave No Trace toilet paper option. Pee only. Basically, any time you find yourself in a situation where you don’t have toilet paper, or maybe you want to bring less toilet paper out into the back country, but still maintain good hygiene, that’s when a pee cloth could be really helpful. It’s unbelievably helpful for travelling, particularly in countries where often toilet paper is nonexistent in public bathrooms.

The printed side of the product is made of a waterproof fabric, and when you pat dry with the antimicrobial absorbent side, you’re essentially just removing any residual moisture from your body.

The best way that I can describe it is that if you don’t wipe or pull away that moisture, then your underwear becomes a de facto pee cloth. And no matter how hard you shake, unless you have thirty minutes to stand out there and air dry, there’s gonna be some leftover droplets. And that sits in your underwear. It marinates there. I would say this is uncomfortable for a day—but when you start talking about traveling or backpacking or hiking or biking for days at a time, and you imagine that you’re keeping your nether region damp and basically not clean, it’s really setting folks up for some type of an infection, chafing, or discomfort.

The Kula gives people the ability to stay comfortable and clean and Leave No Trace at the same time.

I’ve definitely heard of people who use pee funnels also using a Kula Cloth, either as an extra personal wipe or to clean the device. Are those common uses?

We actually sell some of the stand-to-pee devices on our website, because I think they’re a great option for so many reasons! I’ve used them as well, mostly while mountaineering and I’m wearing a harness. What I’ve discovered is that even when using the stand-to-pee device to wipe, the plastic funnel isn’t absorbent, and invariably there will be a couple little drops of moisture that remain. So we have a lot of folks who use the Kula in conjunction. They will use the stand-to-pee device, then use the Kula immediately afterwards just to pat dry.

We also created a bag using our Kula material, called the Kula Pocket, that is specifically designed to hold a stand-to-pee device. It’s an antimicrobial, absorbent, waterproof bag for your pee funnel, so it doesn’t drip everywhere or get pee on your other hygiene products. I feel like stand-to-pee devices and toothbrushes don’t mix! [Laughs]

What’s your story, and how did your experience of the outdoors lead to Kula Cloth?

My very first backpacking trip was in 2006. It was being led by an older gentleman, who was super nice, but as I was preparing for this trip and trying to figure out what to bring, I didn’t feel comfortable asking this older guy, “How do I poop and pee outside?” And he never brought up the subject of “Hey does everyone have a hygiene plan?” I had no idea.

And I went on this trip and I brought NO toilet paper with me, for a two-and-a-half day trip! [Laughs] I think I just thought there was gonna be, I don’t know, a port-o-potty up there? [Laughs] And it didn’t go well for me. I ended up stealing toilet paper from my tent-mate—which to this day, she still doesn’t know I did. But you can only steal so much toilet paper out of a little Ziploc bag before someone starts to wonder where all their toilet paper is going!

It is SHOCKING what an impact that knowing how to handle your hygiene has on your entire experience. That was all I thought about, that whole trip: how I was going to handle going to the bathroom. I realize now, having done Kula for eight years, that it’s such a gift to be able to give people the knowledge they need to head out on their very first trip ever, so they can have the experience I didn’t get to have on my first trip.

How did you come to found Kula Cloth?

I had been a park ranger. I got laid off from that job and I was teaching backpacking. I was on a backpacking trip with my husband in 2015, and we were in the Wind River Range, in the Wind River high route. We were on the second-to-last night of our trip, and it had just been this amazing experience. And I had set my pee cloth up on my trekking pole as a joke, and I was gonna take a photo of it to make a greeting card to give to a friend. And it’s this beautiful sunset, and I’m taking this photo of my pee cloth, and this idea just instantaneously popped into my mind. Like, why isn’t a pee cloth a real piece of gear? It was as if I downloaded the whole idea for Kula Cloth in that moment. And I got really excited about it.

But I got home, and all those little negative voices came in. I did a little research, but I was like, “No one’s gonna buy this, it’s dumb.” And I quit.

A year later, I was driving home from a snow-shoeing trip with my mom and my husband. We were coming home from Stevens Pass on a really amazingly cold day. I was driving. Our truck hit a patch of black ice. We spun across the highway, into the path of an oncoming semi-truck.

Obviously, there’s a very happy ending to that story because here I am! But it was this weird, surreal moment where everything did genuinely slow down, but I had no fear whatsoever. I got home from that experience, and in the few days after it, I couldn’t stop crying. It was like something had cracked open in me.

I had this kind of existential awakening: if I didn’t have fear in what should have been the most terrifying moment of my life, why was I so afraid to try all the stuff that I actually wanted to do?

So the idea for this pee cloth came back up during this time. But all the limiting beliefs were gone. And I decided: I’m gonna go for it! Because what’s the worst that could happen? Nothing compared to that moment spinning across the highway. So I had the epiphany, the idea for the Kula, in 2016, and then I launched our website officially in July of 2018. So it took me a couple of years, and it’s definitely been way harder than I imagined—way, way harder—[Laughs]—but also very, very rewarding and fun.

Have you experienced any resistance or hesitation when promoting this product?

I think within the first few months of launching the product, I got an email from a man named George—who of course has no idea what it’s like to be a person who squats when they pee outside—saying that if he saw one of these squares [Kula Cloths] clipped to somebody’s backpack, he would “laugh in their face,” and that it was the dumbest thing he’s ever seen. I still remember reading that message. I realized that nothing I said was going to convince this person of the importance of this product existing, and that it was okay for him to continue hating it. [Laughs]

There’s definitely been some eye rolls in the early days. People didn’t understand the product. They thought it was gross. And to this day, I find that there is a mix of people who find it disgusting, and people who find it life-changing, and I’ve learned to accept all of that. I teach hygiene classes now, and it’s never a “one-size-fits-all” thing, as if “you HAVE to use a Kula Cloth!” It’s always tailored towards “each person should find what works for them.” Maybe someone loves Kula, maybe someone hates it, but I know that it has made a difference in a lot of people’s lives. And that’s what continues to drive me forward, even when the haters show up.

Kula Cloths feature art by actual humans! Why make pee cloths so FABULOUS?

We have very strictly no AI art on our Kulas! All the prints we do are one-of-a-kind designs. We don’t just buy stock fabric patterns. We have a resident artist and she helps us design all the patterns we sell to retailers. They’re completely from scratch, featuring original watercolors. Over the years, we’ve done a huge focus on artists’ series. We work with artists to create one-of-a-kind designs, and then we put those on a Kula, and the artist receives a portion of the proceeds from each sale. We do them in limited batches, so there’s maybe only 250 of them in existence. To me that’s really special, because art connects people to nature, it connects people to another human, and having something beautiful on your backpack invites curiosity and conversation.

What I’ve discovered about working in the field of Leave No Trace is that shaming people for dropping toilet paper on the ground is NOT a tremendously effective tactic to getting their buy-in to Leave No Trace. Having a product that invites open conversation gives people the ability to get curious and take ownership and really encourages people’s participation in the Seven Principles a lot more. Working with artists is my favorite part of what we do.

Your website has a Peace Portal with guided meditations and thoughtful affirmations, as well as a vibrant and detailed substack, The Kula Diaries. The website rocks! What inspired you to be so creative?

Welcome to my brain! [Laughs] So the word “kula” means community! And I have always had—I’ll call it a creativity problem. [Laughs] I just get these ideas and little nuggets of inspiration, and I just have this deep desire to connect with people in a genuine way. And the online shopping experience is like the antithesis of that!

So as I was creating the website, I would ask myself, “What can I do to make this whole experience special?” There are “fake” products on our website that lead to poems, and there is one product that leads on a quest where you end up finding a Bigfoot and a unicorn at the end. The Peace Portal on our website that guides people through a short meditation, and we have a cookie recipe.

I’ve always wanted Kula to be more than just a piece of gear. We sometimes include hand-painted watercolors in people’s orders—done by me! You can order Love and Kind Words on our website, for free, so people will literally place an order for Love and Kind Words and we send them a letter. It’s been a really special experience to make an impact and delight people in that way. I think now more than ever that is important.

What would you say to a person who wasn’t sure about trying a Kula Cloth?

What I’d probably tell them to do is try it at home first, before they went out into the back country. And if somebody didn’t want to spend the money on a Kula right away, then what I might recommend is looking for a clean piece of microfiber towel, or a bandana—something that you might have in your own home that you could just test a couple times. But it’s not necessarily going to be as absorbent as a Kula, and won’t necessarily have waterproofing on one side, so keep that in mind!

And then from there, maybe going out on a short hike and bringing the Kula along with them, or putting it in a fanny pack or a purse and bringing it out while they’re traveling. I know a lot of people who just keep one in their purse because you never know when you’re going to end up in a port-o-potty with no toilet paper whatsoever. I’d say the 9.9 times out of 10, once people try it, and realize how much cleaner they feel, it’s one of those instantaneously life-changing pieces of gear.

Important question. How do you clean a Kula Cloth?

Well, when I am on a day-hike—or all day travelling—I will use the Kula all day long. It is antimicrobial; it is odor-resistant. Then when I get home, or to my hotel room, I’ll put a couple drops of soap on the Kula, rinse it in the sink, squeeze it out as hard as possible, and just hang it to dry overnight. You can also throw it in your standard washer/dryer. The important thing to mention is that I recommend closing the snap so it doesn’t get snagged in the washer/dryer.

If you are out on the trail, the best practice is to take your water bottle, Kula Cloth, and a tiny bit of soap, and go at least 200 feet or more from natural water sources. Do this over a durable surface, meaning not flowers in a meadow! [Laughs] Suds it up, rinse it off really good, and hang it to dry overnight. If you’re in a super wet climate, like the Pacific Northwest, it’s possible the Kula will take longer to dry. In that case, I recommend placing the slightly damp Kula against your thigh, between your leg and your long underwear, overnight. When you wake up, it will be completely dry. And if you wake up in the night to pee, you can still use the Kula, even if it’s slightly damp.

There are a ton of knockoff Kula’s on Amazon. What makes the original special?

On the one hand, that’s very flattering! I feel like people must know you’re onto something if they knock you off on Amazon! [Laughs] On the other hand, it’s frustrating. I don’t know where they are manufactured, but at the price that they sell them for, I know they are likely not being manufactured here in the US. The Kula’s that we make are all made in Pennsylvania and Colorado.

What I have heard from other customers is that when they have purchased the knockoff Kula’s, that they have fallen apart very quickly. It’s usually a kind of “you get what you pay for” type of situation. And the weakest point on those knockoff products is usually the strap. At Kula, we use a really strong woven label, and I have never heard of one of our straps fraying or breaking or giving way. In addition, I have recently designed and finished our own proprietary fabric that is super plush and antimicrobial, so any of the random Kula knockoffs that you get on Amazon will not have the actual Kula fabric.

Is there anything else you’d like to share that I haven’t asked?

I guess I just really hope that my own story of starting the company reminds people to listen to the little ideas that they have. Because I did it, and I’m no more special than any other person on this planet (believing that all of us are infinitely special in our unique ways). I would really just encourage people to follow their own inspiration and their heart.

I hope Kula can make people’s experience on trails more enjoyable and give them the ability to connect with themselves more deeply while they’re outside.

Thank you Anastasia! Visit the Kula Cloth website to learn more and get your own Kula. Looking for more cool products? Check out the Resources page. And email gostandingup@gmail.com to share your story!