Sorry Not Sorry! I Judge Hotels Based on Their Bath Amenities

Judging a hotel by it’s (toilet seat) cover.

I

was once an inveterate hotel toiletry stealer. Emphasis on the past tense, as I was kneecapped by the advent of the eco-friendly, chained-to-the-wall, big bottle of fixed toiletries. It was probably a blessing in disguise, for it’s been several years, and I’m still working my way through the hordes of tiny bottles cluttering my bathroom at home.

It all started when I was a child. I swam competitively, and we’d travel for swim meets within Alaska. We’d typically stay at Westmark Hotels—that’s a subsidiary of the Holland America Line, operating a chain of hotels across Alaska and the Yukon to support their cruise and tour operations. It was there that I first noticed the adorable little branded bottles of toiletries and became obsessed with them. Somewhere, I still have one of those Westmark bottles adorned with the company’s burgundy whale tail logo, its contents long since stale.

As an adult, staying in hotels more often, I learned to judge hotel bath amenities by one measure—whether they were worth slipping into my bag. The watery, nameless, insipid amenities at mid-scale hotels? They could stay there. So, too, could the boring bath amenities with made-for-hotel brands.

Hotel bath amenities are a relatively new fixture. They weren’t standard amenities at a global hospitality brand until 1980 when Marriott Hotels made them standard at all properties worldwide. Before then, guests typically traveled with their own shampoo and conditioner, relying on hotel gift shops in a pinch. Now, you’d be hard-pressed to find a hotel that doesn’t provide bath amenities—even down to the most basic roadside motel.

Over the years, I started noticing peculiar luxury brands pop up. Bulgari was a favorite in Green Tea, Blue Tea, or White Tea fragrances. Chopard was another, with bath amenities whose fragrances were a dead ringer for Chanel Chance. Lalique popped up from time to time, too. But these aren’t generally bath and body brands. Bulgari is an Italian jewelry company. Chopard is a Swiss luxury goods shop. Lalique is a French crystal purveyor. They each have fragrances, but bath and body products? Nowhere to be found.

Curious me, I did some sleuthing and found that the brands have actually licensed their name and fragrance profile to a German manufacturer of hotel bath and body products. Several high-end brands you’ll find in hotels and on cruise lines are actually made here—including products that do offer their own bath and body products, like Penhaligon’s, which you’ll find onboard Cunard ships, or at posh hotels like The Savoy.

In addition to these, the company offers products that carry labels like Balmain, Asprey, and The White Company, in addition to several other house brands. Now, the products are certainly lovely; just don’t attempt to walk into your local Bvlgari and tell them you’d like to buy some of that lovely hotel lotion.

Another company that does a number of hotel bath products is Gilchrist & Soames. They make Aromatherapy & Associates products (which Marriott currently uses at several of its brands) in addition to Shanghai Tang, which is used at some Conrad Hotels & Resorts, named for a Chinese fashion boutique that doesn’t otherwise produce bath products, in addition to several others. They opened in the 1970s to cater specifically to hotels that provided bath amenities and were the providers for Marriott’s 1980 foray into making the amenities standard.

Some bath amenities, however, are truly bespoke. The Four Seasons Resort Lanai commissions its own bath amenities made from Hawai’i-sourced kukui nut oil and fragranced with awapuhi and plumeria, and it’s absolutely heavenly (they have wall dispensers, but you can buy the products in the spa). Four Seasons properties actually choose their own bath amenities based on local client preference, so you’ll generally find something different at each property. In Bora Bora, the products come from Panpuri. In Houston, the French luxury fragrance brand Diptyque. In Napa Valley, it’s Hinoki-scented products from Le Labo. In Seattle, you’ll find products from Grown Alchemist.

Getting the picture? Luxury brands—none of which are from large-scale hospitality manufacturers—although that’s not necessarily an indicator of lesser quality.

There is a sprinkling of other hotels worldwide that produce their own bath amenities. At The Peninsula Hotels, a group of fragrance experts have designed a fragrance inspired by each of the cities their hotels call home. Guests at The Peninsula Hong Kong have bath amenities fragranced with jasmine, agarwood, and amber, which were designed by local curator Angel Cheung, while in Bangkok, the fragrances are mango, lotus, and orchid. Stateside, guests at The Peninsula New York will find bath amenities fragrance with golden quince, peony, and musk, by fragrance designer Mackenzie Reilly.

At the lovely collection of haciendas on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, the amenities are locally made from endemic botanicals like cucumber, aloe, and honey and presented in eco-friendly refillable clay pots.

Other hotels rely on local purveyors. At The Royal Hawaiian in Waikiki and on Maui at Andaz at Wailea, bath amenities come from Mālie Organics, a Kaua’i-based manufacturer that uses local Hawaiian botanicals and fragrances. And rather than pinching the amenities from hotel rooms, Malie has three of their own boutiques on O’ahu and Kaua’i for guests to make their own purchases (I myself am rather addicted to the Koke’e fragrance).

It’s not just hotels who do it—cruise lines are also in on the bath product game. Virgin Voyages stocks Red Flower products in their onboard bathrooms, in the Red Flower Ocean fragrance for the shower products, a fragrance developed specifically for Virgin Voyages. Liquid hand soaps onboard are Red Flower’s Blood Orange scent. More importantly, like other Red Flower products, they’re made from biodegradable, biocompatible botanicals, so they won’t impact the world’s oceans.

Sadly, it’s harder to take home samples from hotels now that most hotel bath amenities are fixed to the wall (although many offer full-sized bottles for sale). But that is honestly better for the environment, without millions of tiny plastic bottles going into landfills each year—particularly at some of the more remote island resorts, where waste is a big problem.

It’s also better for the storage situation in my home bathroom.