The Mystery of the Missing Hotel Toothpaste (2013)
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This is notable in that the one hotel that carried toothpaste felt they had to say which brand. (They were right, I once stayed at a hotel with generic foreign toiletries and only the toothpaste triggered ill ease: wondering whether potentially tainted toothpaste or skipping toothpaste was the higher risk.) But they had also chosen the wrong brand if they have foreign patrons as aquafresh has very little presence abroad.
I strongly suspect that I am not alone in the stubbornness of my toothpaste preference. I will grudgingly use a different shampoo if I have to as most shampoos don't have too strong of a smell. In any given day I use probably 3 to 6 different soaps, with only the one in my house being my preference (mmmmmmmm coconut ginger) so using some random soap at a hotel is no big deal. But I will be buried deep in the ground before I subject myself to using anything but my usual toothpaste.
It took me years to find a flavor of mint that I honestly enjoy using. Nothing else has ever felt quite right; it even has the right texture! Using another flavor for even one brushing would make me want to gag. Taste, in both senses of the word, is a very personal thing I suppose.
So every six months I stock-up on a cocktail of various toothpastes and just use whatever comes out of the bag next.
The only one that was jarring was Corsodyl, and it even had a little chart on the reverse showing that people needed three months ot so to adapt to its taste. I persevered with it because it was free but wouldn't choose it voluntarily.
I have never met someone as picky as you say you are with your toothpaste. I don't think you're the norm in any way.
But similar to the previous poster, I (and the people similar to myself) don't have this at all with soap or shampoo.
The only exception I make is for anti-perspirant (also something I haven't ever seen in hotels) because some brands make my skin become red and fall of and some don't work well enough.
I currently live that proper state of delusion that allows full placebo effect and toothpaste is not expensive enough to warrant a reality check.
Thankfully, that's not a taste related thing like parent, so I borrow toothpaste from friend, family or hotel the few times I travel. Also, since it is feature based, other brands have started introducing similar feature, allowing me a bit of variation.
But really I can understand parent, I have had a period were I was so scared of going to the dentist (I was 30+ at the time) that I was following a very strict routine religiously. I took my toothpaste, brush, rince and floss on my wedding night. They travelled with me to another continent on my honey moon. I took them to the hospital to use on the night my son was born.
But soap is soap is soap, and toothpaste is the same ingredients in the same concentration for basically every manufacturer (and even then, it's mostly the mechanical action of brushing that gets your teeth clean, not the toothpaste itself -- you can brush with water in a pinch and still be fine). I convinced my husband to buy generic toothpaste and it's saved us DOLLARS (Woo! Big money!) a year!
At home I share a tube of toothpaste with my wife: if we go on holiday together, we bring the tube with us.
If I'm travelling solo, for business or whatever, then the home toothpaste stays at home, so I need to remember to buy a new tube to take with me. It's the only thing I need to expressly purchase other than the hotel room booking.
This can't be that unusual a scenario... can it?
Sometimes, I feel like I'm so cavalier about spending money that my depression-era grandparents must be rolling in their graves, but then when I see comments like this, it makes me feel much more frugal. ;-)
I'm different than my father, but we definetly don't give hard earned money away. Now easily made money I usually spend freely.
Tooth paste--prescription grade, and use pea size amount. (Not out of cheapness--just don't want to give a dentist any money. ) Hair cutting--Flobee. Car breaks down--pull out the tools. Plumbing problems--one day at a garage sale I bought a 4' monkey wrench. I've actually used it. Emotional upset--drink. Need new clothes--pull out sewing machine, and custom fit cheap clothes. Eat out--specifical occasions. Buy Men's hair color to hide getting older in this ageist society--walk right over to women hair color and buy brown 51 for $2.99. The only item I splurge on is a certain glycerine soap. (I have thought about making my own, and might if I can obtain Neutrigenia's propriatiry formula?)
And I would never tell a date/most people any of this. When socializing, I'm a phoney spendthrift, and when it came to my pets money was never an option. I would pay anything to make them healthy/happy. Years later I was talking to a vet I befriended, and he said they have a office subscript for guy's like me--it's WPA. (Will pay anything). I remember being bothered, but their health was my priority, even when I was broke. They all passed, but I have no guilt over their care.
Sure it is. Buy a travel/trial size tube. I do it dozens of times a year.
I made up a theory that it has to be sourcing problem. Toothpaste is one thing that you don’t hear small supplier making on their own - I get to hear all the time about handcrafted artisan soaps, conditioner, shampoos etc. but not toothpaste. So for hotel industry it is very easy to source small supplies of toiletries other than toothpaste.
And on the other hand name brand toothpaste manufacturer would not be interested in setting up manufacturing lines for small toothpaste tubes (the fact it is a tube, which essentially needs a pumping machine to fill it up supports this line of thinking) for a niche segment where volumes would be minuscule as compared to their traditional channels.
Emirates also supplies a toothbrush and toothpaste on long flights in a nice little toilet bag, even for economy passengers.
These things are everywhere, except apparently American Hotels.
In USA the marketing strategies of these companies does not include 'Sachet marketing' or mini sizing. And of course importing these small size containers for a niche market in USA would not make sense at all.
[Edit] This blog writes about how the new trend in Europe is 'Right sizing' of packaging.
Smaller is Better as Global Packaging Growth is Shaped by Variation in Pack Sizes. http://blog.euromonitor.com/2016/06/smaller-is-better-as-glo...
I think it was the same in other European countries where I stayed, but my memory isn't good enough to be sure. In Asia I have always found toothpaste in hotels though.
Keep in mind that you always have the option of getting them to send up toothpaste.
That's what I always do. I definitely can't be bothered to pack toothpaste and have yet to encounter a hotel where they didn't have some available.
At the end of the day, I think that's the strongest reason it's not in rooms: anyone who actually wants it can simply call.
(1) Toothpaste, deodorant, tampons, and similar "intimate" items are highly desired by most people, and so, clearly, most people will bring them as a matter of course.
(2) Soap, shampoo, and other things you usually find provided by hotels are, however, awkward for the traveler to carry on their journey. But they are cheap for a hotel to provide, so they do so.
(3) Loofahs, shoehorns, and other misc. junk are just thrown in to cheaply create an image of luxury.
Why is this a mystery?
When I think about why I bring toothpaste and a toothbrush with me... it's because hotels don't provide them. It's not because I want my toothbrush, or my toothpaste, or even my floss, I just bring it because I can't rely on always having it otherwise.
Which just gets into the circular reasoning. Hotels don't provide it because travelers bring it because hotels don't provide it etc. That's probably the reason the pattern continues, but then why didn't it catch on in the first place?
Bringing my own soap is even worse, because nobody wants to carry around a slimy wet cake of soap.
Bringing my own toothpaste is easy, because it's small, and I get the brand whose taste I'm accustomed to. Also, I've got to bring my toothbrush with me anyway, so the toothpaste as well isn't a big problem.
Now, shaving cream, on the other hand, is an item that's a bit of a hassle to cart around with me.
(Or if I'm roughing it in the wilderness or something then I probably don't care that much about clean hair.)
I've found the standard units of Col. Conk shaving soap, e.g. http://www.westcoastshaving.com/Col-Conk-Shaving-Soap-Lime-S... to be good for travel. The plastic container the soap is embedded in can be resealed for travel and you don't have the 'slimy wet cake' problem that I have yet to solve for other forms of soap. Shaving soap is also more economical than shaving cream; much less of it is used per shave, and so a single small unit of shaving soap can last for many months.
I've even tried body lotion in a pinch, at a hotel that didn't have conditioner unless you asked for it... not the worst. But way better than shaving cream from hotels still, especially when they give you those practically empty plastic packets.
You don't fly anywhere where TSA 'protects' the skies then?
Unless of course you buy the "gel" type.
YMMV of course as to how strenuously this is enforced in practice. My observation is that in Europe (at least in the UK) the separate quart baggie taken out of luggage is actually more routinely and more strictly enforced than in the US. And I somewhat doubt that a squeezed down tube of toothpaste in that baggie is typically going to cause an issue. (But in the US, I use travel-sized toothpaste and have TSA Pre so I don't have a lot of recent data.)
I bring my own:
Shampoo (Cant stand the smell of most hotel shampoo), Soap (I like Dr. Bronners in the Bar, also, see above), Toothpaste (I'm preferential to colgate with fluoride), Deodorant (Unscented), Aftershave, Q-Tips, (2) Razors, Antacids plus a bevy of other personal care products.
I don't use most of the toiletries left by the hotel, they don't smell good (though they seem to do just fine with cleaning) - Mostly I just don't relish smelling like 'Citron Citrus Explosion with Mango and Green Tea extract' for 3-4 hours after I shower. The rest of the stuff is so I don't have to go look for a 7-Eleven or Drug Store (usually in the middle of the night) in a strange city to fix whatever ails me. It also helps make travel more bearable, because then I feel more like I would if I was at home.
So I suspect the real reason hotel's have no toothpaste in the rooms, is most travelers prefer to bring their own.
Indeed, this was my thought too. I suspect that toothpaste is such a necessity that nobody travels without their own. Shampoos, conditioners et al are nice but not necessary and hence less liable to find a place in the backpack.
The hotels must have observed the unused toothpaste tubes and simply removed the item from their inventory to cut down the costs.
This thread is like bizarro universe for me. Am I seriously the only one who's tried asking the desk for toothpaste?
cough
It begs the question: What else in the world do we not see until we see it?
No other podcast or any other source causes this issue.
I'll have to investigate this further (or buy a new car) when I have the time.
There were typically two cue dots for each ~15 minute reel. On the first cue dot, the projectionist would start the second projector running while the second was the cue to actually switch over.
They normally have to do many rooms, so they don't always have the time to do it properly. When at a hotel, drinking glasses / cups / mugs etc.. I always clean myself before using.
[0] https://consumerist.com/2007/11/07/secret-camera-investigati...
I like long form writing but not when it's short form writing plus filler.
A Sheraton I visited recently provided a packet of shave cream. It smelled of horrible medicine and it didn't protect my face at all during shaving; in fact, I determined over two days that using it had been worse than not at all. Note that I tried with and without mixing it with an appropriate amount of water, but it didn't matter.
I know there is probably a significant cost different to the hotel, but I vote for name-brand toothpaste over horrible shave cream.
As for the rest, they only thing I would want is shampoo. Since the TSA started checking for "insecure" amounts of fluids, I have really started to rely on the shampoo in hotels. I only keep an "insecurely" large bottle of shampoo at home and don't want to waste time and energy putting it into a small bottle to take with me for the matter of a few to several days of use.
BTW, If you're curious about the 100mL TSA rule, read these for their explanation and reasoning:
https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/liquids-rule
http://blog.tsa.gov/2008/02/more-on-liquid-rules-why-we-do-t...
http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/05/3-1-1-liquid-policy-still-in-pla...
http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/08/talk-to-tsa-response-are-liquids...
Used to keep them for guests at home.
Things do get topped up. Those big soap dispenser things with some posh label on, they do get topped up. There are different ways to do this - sometimes the trolley with towels and stuff on has a few pre-topped up ones on and they get swapped over. Some staff top up on a room by room basis, obviously only when the guests change lest the illusion be shattered. These items rarely get stolen (even by American tourists) in country hotels (can't say for big corporate chains). There is a matter of trust going on here and far less gets taken by guests than you might imagine, few people 'steal'.
The ratings thing is what defines what you have in a room. Some things like 3/4 length mirrors chime in on two stars, if I remember. Even number of coat hangers is star count related.
I have done my fair share of running around for guests, I cannot remember ever having to get toothpaste or even a toothbrush for any guest ever. It is just not a requirement or expectation or even something that people habitually forget.
Some things are available in the smallest of shops, toothpaste being one and tampons being another. I believe that people have no more of an expectation to find toothpaste as they do have to expect tampons, condoms or razor blades just there as a freebee.
There are more worrying things though in a hotel. That glass to drink out of, how do you know that it wasn't washed and then dried using the towel left behind by the previous guest? For that same towel to also be used to dry off the tiles in the bathroom, the floor and the sink? Usually the towels will be boil washed and dried by some contractor, however, they are as much in use by the housekeeping staff as the guests in many a place.
Another observation is the state of the toilets. Those guests that dine on fine cuisine in the restaurant probably don't eat that sort of stuff every day. It really does not sit with them too well and the toilets do show the signs of this. Compared to the staff toilets (or the loos at your workplace), hotel toilets are a mess, that posh food is just not intestine friendly. Therefore, if you are in a hotel, be far more concerned about what goes in your mouth rather than how you clean your mouth.
A further point, why didn't the research for this article include a word or two from housekeeping staff? Do managers really know how to do hospital corners or any of the multitude of things one needs to do to make a hotel room spotless in 20 minutes?
...then why is it that can I find mouthwash in about half the hotels I stay at? Mouthwash "goes in your mouth, and maybe down your throat".
> Or perhaps it’s a simple matter of portability and convenience. A bottle of shampoo might leak in your luggage; a bar of soap is often slimy; a tube of toothpaste, though, can be tossed into your Dopp kit without a second thought.
...yeah, but have you ever had a tube of toothpaste leak or explode in your kit? What an absolute mess. It's happened twice in my life. The first time took forever trying to clean everything else - even then my deodorant case and razor handle always left my hands smelling minty fresh a long while. The second time it happened I just threw it all out and bought new gear. That's why I rarely pack a new, whole tube of toothpaste anymore.
But, yes, there's at least the opportunity for boutique hotels to use a "luxury" shampoo/soap brand as part of their overall image and guest experience.
Whereas for toothpaste, it's pretty much Crest or Colgate. Or, if you're a somewhat frou-frou B&B in Vermont or California, maybe Tom's.
It's a cost saving measure, and I assume most people travel with their own toothpaste (so much preference, is small and doesn't flag TSA search.) If someone stays one night, even if they don't use the toothpaste, you still have to replace the tube. Makes more sense to keep a small supply at the front desk/back-room.
Heck, I provide a bottle of wine to my Airbnb guests.
I've never stayed in a high end hotel in the US which didn't provide a toothpaste and toothbrush kit on the bathroom counter on arrival. And like many other people are stating on this thread at almost every hotel I've stayed at in other regions around the world (Asia, Oceania, South America, Europe) the same thing is provided.
Seems like a bit of a straw man premise for the article.
In the last year, I've been in a full service Marriott, Hilton, Sheraton and a Hyatt - and out of those, only the Hyatt had toothpaste. The Sheraton also had one, but it was clearly marked as a special promotion, and my last stay at a sheraton before that, had no such amenity.
Isn't Wyndham the same group that had a major security breach and the pleaded to congress that it's not their job to keep customer data safe from thieves?
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2012/06/ftc-f...
So I wouldn't expect them to understand anything that customers actually think.