Reinventing the Pressroom Wipe

For decades, industrial wipes have been a staple in pressrooms and production environments—useful, convenient and largely unchanged. But Tower Products saw an opportunity to rethink what a wipe could actually do.

By combining industrial-grade nonwoven wipes with its well-known Knockout Pressroom Cleaner—a product many printers refer to as “the product that walks out of the pressroom”—Tower believes it has created something new: a high-performance cleaning wipe built around proven chemistry instead of commodity convenience.

Leading the launch is industry veteran Kristin Olson Kott, known throughout printing and nonwovens circles as the “Queen of Wipes.” With deep experience spanning wipes, safety products, industrial consumables and pressroom operations, Kott joined Tower Products with a mission that extends beyond printing alone: helping customers rethink where advanced cleaning wipes can improve efficiency, safety and performance and helping Tower’s ambitions to have products in more than just print.

In this exclusive Q&A, Kott discusses the launch of Knockout Wipes, the evolution of industrial cleaning products, and why she believes the market is ready for a smarter wipe.

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Nonwovens Industry: The industry has used wipes for years. What made Tower rethink the category?

Kristin Olson Kott: Honestly? Because nobody really had.

Wipes have been around forever in industrial environments, especially in printing, but for the most part they’ve been treated like a commodity product. You grab a bucket, you use a wipe, end of story. What fascinated me was that the chemistry inside the wipe often hadn’t evolved nearly as much as the equipment and production environments around it.

Tower already had this incredibly respected cleaner in Knockout. Printers know it works. It has a reputation in the field because it dissolves ink on contact, cleans aggressively without damaging surfaces, and operators genuinely trust it. People literally call it “the product that walks out of the pressroom.”

So the question became: why not combine proven chemistry with the convenience and versatility of a wipe platform?

That’s where Knockout Wipes were born.

NW: For readers unfamiliar with the product, what exactly are Knockout Wipes?

Kott: At the simplest level, it’s a high-performance industrial wipe saturated with Tower’s proprietary Knockout cleaning chemistry.

But what makes it different is that this isn’t just a wipe with some generic solvent added. The chemistry matters. Knockout was specifically formulated for demanding printing environments. It dissolves ink quickly, cleans and degreases hard surfaces, and works across a wide variety of materials including rubber, metal, plastic, fiberglass and more.

So now you’re taking a chemistry platform that operators already trust and putting it into a much more portable, efficient and easy-to-use delivery system.

That changes the user experience completely.

NW: Why do you think the timing is right for a product like this?

Kott: Because everybody is trying to do more with less.

Whether you’re talking about printing, packaging, converting or manufacturing in general, labor is tighter, downtime is more expensive and people want products that are simple, effective and consistent.

Nobody wants six different cleaners sitting around if one product can handle multiple applications well. Operators also don’t want harsh products that smell terrible or require a chemistry degree to use safely.

Knockout has always stood out because it delivers strong cleaning performance while still being easy to work with. It has a mild odor, no ammonia, low VOC characteristics and a high flash point, which are all important considerations in modern facilities.

Putting that into a wipe format just makes practical sense for today’s environment.

NW: What makes Knockout Wipes different from traditional industrial wipes?

Kott: Performance and intentionality.

A lot of wipes on the market are designed around cost first. The wipe material is generic, the chemistry is generic and the expectation is basically, “Well, it’s a wipe.”

We approached it differently. We started with chemistry that already had credibility in the field and built outward from there.

These wipes are designed for real industrial cleaning — ink, grease, grime, press contamination, general maintenance cleanup. And because Knockout is non-damaging to rubber rollers, blankets and press parts, operators can use it confidently in sensitive production environments.

That’s a huge difference.

Also, let’s be honest: if a wipe doesn’t actually clean well, people stop using it pretty quickly. Industrial operators are brutally honest product reviewers. They’ll tell you immediately if something doesn’t work.

NW: Was there a moment where you realized this could become more than just another product launch?

Kott: Absolutely.

The minute we started talking to people outside traditional print applications, the conversations got really interesting. Yes, Tower is deeply rooted in printing—and that expertise is incredibly valuable—but industrial cleaning challenges exist everywhere and the experience of cleaning ink has applicability to a LOT of those challenges.

When customers start seeing how effectively this chemistry performs in a wipe format, suddenly you’re discussing maintenance departments, packaging plants, equipment cleaning, industrial manufacturing and specialty applications we may not have even considered yet.

NW: Tower Products has always emphasized worker safety and environmental responsibility. How does Knockout Wipes fit into that philosophy?

Kott: That was actually one of the things that attracted me to the company.

Tower has never approached chemistry as “stronger is automatically better.” They’ve always focused on balancing performance with operator experience and environmental responsibility.

Knockout doesn’t contain ammonia, it has a mild odor and it was formulated to work effectively without unnecessarily aggressive chemistry. Those things matter in real facilities where people are using products all day long.

A wipe also helps with consistency. Operators get the same amount of chemistry every time instead of overapplying product or dealing with overspray and spills.

That may sound small, but in production environments those little workflow improvements add up quickly.

NW: You’re known throughout the industry as the “Queen of Wipes.” How did that reputation develop?

Kott: (Laughs.) Honestly, I think it stuck because I genuinely love talking about wipes. I post all the time about how I don’t take it too seriously and I woke up one day and decided “why not be the Queen of Wipes”—someone is going to be, and its memorable. 

Most people don’t wake up excited about nonwovens and industrial cleaning products, but I do. There’s a surprising amount of engineering, chemistry and user psychology involved in creating a great wipe product.

Over the years I’ve worked across wipes, PPE, industrial products and safety solutions, and I’ve always been fascinated by products that quietly make operators’ lives easier.

NW: What kind of feedback have you received so far?

Kott: The biggest response has been, “Why didn’t somebody do this sooner?”

People already knew the Knockout brand, so there’s immediate credibility there. Once they actually use the wipes, they quickly understand this isn’t a novelty product. It’s a legitimate industrial cleaning tool.

And because the wipe format is portable and easy to use, people naturally start finding additional applications for it beyond the original intended use. That’s where things get really fun from an innovation standpoint.

NW: Where do you see this category going over the next few years?

Kott: I think industrial wipes are going to become much more application-specific and chemistry-driven.

For a long time, wipes were viewed as accessories. I think they’re evolving into performance products in their own right.

Customers want convenience, but they also want technical credibility. They want products that clean effectively, support safety initiatives and simplify operations.

That’s exactly where Knockout Wipes fits.

And from Tower’s perspective, we’re just getting started exploring where this platform can go.

https://towerproducts.com