Basically, almost all hotel toiletries are cheaply made, using mostly synthetic ingredients. The name brands just license their brands to companies that make toiletries for hospitality use (and there are only a handful), and the formulations are almost nothing like what you’d find in retail. (One exception I’ve found is Aveda.)
Some of the companies that make the products you’ll see in mainstream hotel chains:
https://www.guestsupply.com
https://www.mariettahospitality.com
https://www.labottega.com
Thank you, this is informative!
My uninformed opinion is that this makes a lot of sense for low or mid-end brands, but I am not sure it applies at top end brands. My gut feeling is that Salvatore Ferragamo would not accept their name being used on cheap toiletries, ie the same toiletries being used at the lower end of the scale.
I have never bought SF retail however so I cannot say for sure, all I can say is that toiletries available in Waldorf hotels seem far superior (subjective opinion, admittedly) than amenities at lower brands such as DoubleTree or Hilton so I would be quite surprised if SF is made the same as C&E or PTR except for a "different fragrance" as the previous poster alluded to.
If I am wrong, then they have successfully employed effective marketing to make my perceptions of the product differ from the actual product.
