Reusing shampoo and soap? It makes as much sense as a restaurant re-using plastic straws. I certainly hope the health department doesn't allow cheapness to extend that far! :eek:

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Actually, some hotel chains are sending discarded soap bars to a factory in China that uses a patented process to spin a fine, cotton-like thread that is used for synthetic hypo-allergenic pillows.

So, rest assured that the "green" movement is alive and well in the hospitality industry.

Oh, and I've got a great deal on recycled bridges from Brooklyn if you're interested.

I too take the extra toiletries home to donate to the battered women's shelter. I wouldn't steal from the housekeeping cart, but I figure I have paid for the toiletries as part of the room rate. So I use the first set myself, then save up the rest of the nights' worth to bring home.

The shelter staff say they are much appreciated

It may also depend on where you are. A family friend recently graduated from college with a Hospitality Management degree in South Carolina. In class, she was told that SC heath code requires that all soaps/shampoos be pitched when rooms are cleaned and replaced with "new" items, regardless if the bottle has been opened.

What? The slippers are reused?

Congratulations. First FT thread to make me ill.

I won't even share soap with my wife!

Disposed~
 

That strikes me as being just a little bit bizarre.

Seriously, it's soap. It kills germs. Give it a rinse and forget about it.

(Though in hotels, I like them wrapped in little bits of tissue paper and arranged in a basket).

I never said it wasn't bizarre :-) It makes no sense at all, considering other things I share with her.
We all have our quirks. Could be worse!

Common misconception. Without any sort of anti-bacterial ingredient in the soap, all you're doing is giving them a bubble bath. It's the rubbing action of your hands more than the soap.

I probably don't want to share my soap with a complete stranger, that's true. But it's not sharing it with a partner - with whom the rubbing action of hands has presumably done a lot more - that I was having a giggle at.

You haven't seen the Friends episode pertaining to this have you? It's not stealing if it's something intended for you.. :)

Good timing for this thread.

On Wednesday night I stayed at the Knight's Inn in Pendleton, Oregon.

They offered three new bars of soap (I used one, kept one, and left the third).

But the shampoo...... :eek:

It was a generous sized bottle (as hotel shampoos go) but there was no seal on it. What WAS on it, however, was a series of sticky fingerprints...the kind that would be made by someone who had touched shampoo. Since the bottle was full, I can only assume the fingerprints did not belong to the previous occupant of the room. All indications were that the bottle had been re-filled.

Generally speaking I would applaud attempts to be thrifty and to re-use rather than throw away items such as shampoo bottles. But for the love of Wyndham, at least WASH the #%@# bottle off after you've refilled it. :mad::rolleyes:

As for me, I simply used a half-full Howard Johnson's shampoo in my toiletry bag and left the sticky bottle there for the next poor schlump who ends up in that room. I just didn't have the energy to complain.

Even salt from the shaker? :p

Vigorous rubbing of the hands with soap causes generates foam. This vigorous rubbings causes the soap detergent molecules to break up bacterial cell membranes.