Hotel toiletries... to take or not to take, that is the question
Some years ago, on checking into the Mandarin Oriental in London with my mother, we were upgraded to a junior suite. And as we wandered around, oohing and aahing, I strolled into the bathroom where my eye fell on the toiletries. I almost shrieked with delight. And then I rang a friend at home and left a message on her voicemail. ‘Only three words to say to you,’ I said. ‘Jo Malone toiletries!’
Suffice to say that a small quantity of those Lime, Basil and Mandarin goodies made their way into my bag for the journey home.
Similar story when I once stayed with my husband in the exquisite Villa Feltrinelli on Lake Garda. There it wasn’t Jo Malone delights, but those from the Acqua di Parma range. You know, that expensive stuff with the bright yellow packaging that you see in Brown Thomas. And not hotel-sized bottles either. These were the full monty versions.
Whether it was acceptable to take these home or not I’ve never been sure. (We did.) It’s a difficult one, drawing the line on what is deemed okay to pocket and cart home, and what isn’t.
A hotel manager once told me that one couple had taken the curtains! It was years ago and I presume they had paid cash for their stay and so there was no credit card trail.
Toiletries are fair game. According to a Hilton Hotel survey, 73% of guests take the toiletries. The same goes for the toothbrush, the shower cap and the sewing kits.
Then there’s slippers. Hotels actually prefer you to take these because, once used, they get rid of them anyway.
In my early travelling days I used to be thrilled to get the slippers in an upmarket hotel. Now they’re everywhere and I rarely open the sealed packets. A cheap white towelling slipper is precisely that, after all. Only a pair that were some way different in colour or style would still entice me.
Bathrobes are a no-no. If you pinch a bathrobe from any hotel nowadays you will find it charged to your credit card once you arrive home. In some of the finer establishments you can purchase a robe if that is your thing. I don’t see the attraction, I have to say, but each to their own.
Towels and shower mats, for some people, are a fine-line issue. You’ll never stay in the Ritz in Paris again in your life, so you’re determined to have the monogrammed shower mat hanging in your bathroom at home – just as a reminder, you understand.
And then there are those little ceramic dishes. The one with a few sweets in it. Or the one holding the soap. You really shouldn’t...but, hey, it’s not as if you are stealing a marble fireplace (as someone did in the Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire) or an Andy Warhol painting (that was the W Hotel in Hong Kong).
The thing is, sometimes you only have to ask.
Years ago, staying in a swanky hotel in Venice for a special occasion, my eye fell on a lovely soap dish. No name plastered all over it. Just white, with a delicate terracotta-coloured pattern, and the hotel name, very discreetly, on the bottom of the dish.
So I asked about it at the front desk. And do you know what? They gave it to me as a keepsake.
How classy is that? Classy enough to beat, hands down, all the toiletries and slippers in the world that you could ever squish into your suitcase.
Take a bow, Hotel Cipriani.