Washi tape is a form of decorative tape that originally comes from Japan and is made of paper. Washi is a Japanese word for a traditional thin paper where wa means Japanese and shi means paper. They have a long long tradition of making paper, many hundreds of years before it even appeared in Europe.
But the washi tape itself has its history from Kamoi Kakoshi, which is a Japanese company that was founded as early as 1923. They produced fly paper, with which you catch flies. Over the years, they developed their range. In 1981 they created the Washi adhesive tape "No.3303". A tape that snared had a function of being a tape. In 2008, they launched the brand mt, masking tape which was more focused on stationery and for this they received the Good Design Award. In other words, Mt, masking tape is the original for that form of tape.
There are a variety of different materials on decorative tape where washi tape has become a kind of umbrella term for decorative tape. But washi tape is made of thin Japanese paper and usually has an adhesive that makes it removable. But the word washi tape has simply become synonymous with all fancy decorative tapes. Decorative tapes can be made of other paper, plastic and the glue can be removable or permanent adhesion.
The fact that it is removable also depends on both the substrate and the tape. If the substrate is porous, the tape can tear off the substrate, regardless of how good the quality of the tape is.
