Another Hyatt Loads Housekeeping Carts With Bulk Toiletries In Condiment Bottles — And Keeps A Toilet Brush By Clean Towels

A reader spotted the Hyatt Place Phoenix Mesa with a housekeeping cart with bulk toiletries “in condiment containers.”

Hyatt Place hotels normally feature KenetMD, which was a line Hyatt Regency properties used to feature (it replaced Portico White Ginger in late 2012). Hyatt featured it before there was a consumer-facing retail product.

The reader also notes that “the toilet bowl brush is next to fresh towels too” on the cart.

It seems to me that,

• The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act governs cosmetics sold or distributed. This includes soaps, shampoos, and lotions used in hotels.

• The FDA resulates this under 21 CFR 701. Products must carry proper labeling: product identity, net contents, manufacturer or distributor name and address, etc. A container without any labeling typically qualifies as “misbranded.”

• The fact that the hotel is providing the product (versus selling in a store) would not exempt it — the law applies to any distribution in commerce, including hotel amenities.

Last month I wrote about the Wild Palms Hotel in Sunnyvale, California, which is part of Hyatt’s JdV brand, appearing to be using JdV standard amenities in guest bathrooms – Jonathan Adler brand – while stocking housekeeping carts with “bulk, industrial service jugs of DRIFT Hydrated Body Care.”

Earlier this year I wrote about Hyatt Regency San Francisco appearing to refill bulk shower toiletries in guest rooms with ‘mystery goop from a commercial ketchup jug’.

In addition to FDA rules, California has its Safe Cosmetics Act requiring disclosure of listed chemicals and clear identification of cosmetic products. An unlabeled bottle cannot meet this requirement. The California Fair Packaging and Labeling Act further requires an identity statement, manufacturer or responsible party, and net contents. Unlabeled containers fail all three of these requirements.

I have been concerned about these bulk dispensers in rooms replacing individual toiletry bottles to save money for a long time. There are 5 issues with them.

1. Authenticity While some upscale hotels in China have been known to distribute counterfeit branded toiletries even in individual bottles to save money, it’s far more likely that you’re getting what’s on the bottle when it’s in the bottle versus just refilled into a branded package on the wall. You don’t know what you’re really getting when you don’t see the package.

2. Security Previous hotel guests might find it funny to put something other than shampoo or bath gel in the bottles, or to mix them up. For instance, someone replaced the soap in dispensers at the Detroit airport with bodily fluid and you don’t know who was staying in your room before you. Some hotels use tamper proof mounting on the walls. Many don’t. Or the mounting is left unlocked.

3. Germs You should not believe that the dispensers themselves get thoroughly cleaned and sterilized between guests. Here’s a National Institutes of Health study on bacterial contamination of bulk-soap-refillable dispensers.

4. Availability Housekeeping just doesn’t refill these, the way it’s obvious when a bottle has been opened or is missing.

   I stayed at the same Marriott Courtyard two weeks in a row where I was assigned the same room both times. My bath gel was empty throughout my first stay, and it was still empty a week later.

5. Experience. It’s not a premium experience. There’s no ‘take away’ to remember the stay.
   Indeed I use shampoo and bath gel at home that I discovered at a hotel, I imagine many of you do too.

Readers sometimes question whether I’m too cynical, thinking that hotels would refill these branded bottles with something cheaper. Do you?