My eyes aren’t as good as they used to be. When I turned 40 I started wearing glasses for reading. I would occasionally bring my laptop closer to my face to read, or enlarge text. I was using my laptop on a brighter screen setting to see clearly, which of course drained battery more quickly.
I finally gave in, got glasses, and the world became crisper. I haven’t had a desire for laser eye surgery, and I haven’t ever been with even putting eye drops in my eye, so I never considered contacts. There are just a few times, though, where wearing glasses isn’t practical. The major one is… in the shower.
The person who helps with cleaning my house (who I really appreciate) drives me a little crazy. Every week she switches the places of my shampoo and body wash bottles in the shower. I have to switch them back. It matters where they are because I’m a creature of habit and don’t read the bottles – I just reach for a given bottle in same spot.
Staying at hotels I can’t rely on the order of placement of the bottles in the shower. I need to read the labels. But invariably, writing on the labels is always too small for me to read without glasses. I have to get in the shower with my glasses on, remember which bottle is where, get out to remove my glasses and get back in.
This could be easily solved with larger, darker writing on the bottles or offset against an easier to read background.
Hotels could encourage this, and only buy toiletries with bigger font sizes on the bottles. Hotel brands can pay attention to this when selecting for a brand standard. It’s basic user experience.
Even within a single brand, bottle variance is huge. Here’s what purports to be Marriott’s ‘white tea’ products where it’s actually readable.
If there’s one underlying theme across my writing, and the feedback I offer most in my airline, hotel, and airport experiences is that paying attention to details matters and is often far more important than how much money is invested in the product. You have a job to do, so do it with abandon. Focus relentlessly on how customers will experience it from start to finish.
Otherwise you wind up with hotel guests trying to wash their bodies with conditioner, or getting into the shower and turning on the water only to find out they have no idea which bottle is shampoo, getting out and getting the bathroom floor all well while they’re cold until returning back under the hot water. And that’s not a great way to start the morning – and not how hoteliers want guests experiencing their property.
Classic case of companies not asking their end users for input. All is want is a giant B, S, and C on the three bottles and problem solved.
This is so annoyingly true!
I never use that stuff in hotels. Carry a small bottle of your own preferred and safe product.
@ Gary — Isnt it like Mexican food — all the same ingredients presented in a different form?
I carry stickers that are removable in 3 colors to put on the bottles. That way I do not need to wear my glasses. The Yellow sticker has a rough surface on it, so I can find the shampoo with my eyes closed. I found them in a toy store for less than $2 for 100 sets.
I have the same issue / same complaint.
I’ve been sharing that forever. One time, extremely frustrated, I asked the woman at the front desk “what do you wear in the shower?” Not surprisingly, her reaction wasn’t great. So then I asked her, “to be clear, do you wear your eyeglasses in the shower?” She then seemed to get the point. but nothing changed. Even more surprising, now with the big permanent jars affixed to the shower wall, and with all the added space, some vendors still use tiny fonts. So I take out my sharpie (a great thing to travel with) and put a huge S, C or G on each bottle.
As to those that recommended bringing labels, great idea, perhaps worth billing the hotel for them, sort of a “reverse amenity fee?”
This is spot on.
If you’ve preheated your shower your glasses will steam up making it impossible to use them.
I reorder the bottles when I first arrive:
Shampoo, Body wash, Conditioner
I do not use any of these products. Usually made of drying and poor ingredients (cheap). Most hotels are also getting rid of bars of soap for hand washing (pumps instead). I always bring my shampoo, conditioner and 2 bars of soap (Dove). Unless you’re staying at the Ritz, hotels continue to cut corners at all levels and this is just one of them. Lotions are also becoming a thing of the past, including poor quality of towels. Continued decline at all levels when it comes to travel, from airport lounges, airlines and hotels. It’s all about cutting costs, increasing profits for executives, shareholders and offering customers less and treating their employees like crap. Welcome to corporate America at its finest.
One of those obvious things that is hard to believe not yet figured out.
But my biggest pet peeve is stupid shower designs mostly out of USA.
No shower curtain
Half enclosure
Any design that gets the rest of the floor wet is wasteful, dangerous, and idiotic.
Finally, when you can only reach water controls and get soaked by cold water.
Couldn’t agree more with you on this issue. Why hotels do not understand that some guests are not in their 20’s and 30’s is perplexing.
I have the same visual problem. I also have greasy skin, and products like “shower gel” and “body wash” don’t make me squeaky clean. I carry my own soap but I still have to search for the shampoo botthle.
Finally — blog writer addresses what really matters.
These products might be selected by genius MBAs, but pretty sure they don’t test them with their customers — especially those of a “certain age.”
Reminds of AA selected plane interiors without creating bothering. Well done, Gary!
I hate those wall mounted toiletries period.
Not the same, but a similar issue. I’m short and I’m really getting tired of having to turn the water on in the shower every time I check in to a room to see if the shower head needs to be adjusted. Then I have to call someone to adjust it – maintenance, housekeeping – whoever.
All too often it is pointed to his the back wall and I get hit in the face with the water. The first time this happened I was already in the shower, turned it on and the water never reached my body. Of course the shower head is too high and I couldn’t reach it. I had to drag a chair into the bathroom, stand on the chair and hold on to the wall to adjust the shower head. I had visions of falling down and waiting for the housekeeper for find me.
Absolutely agree. Glad we’re almost done with annoying little disposable bottles that are hard to get the product out of, but the tiny fonts and poor labeling are my peeve too. I need glasses for everything and this simple design fix would make a huge difference.
You take a look into the shower with your glasses on, before you get in. Not very difficult!
While I like my own products finding the liquid cleansers more like dish soap, I would like to address another shower issue. Hotels tend to have poor lighting in the shower areas. Perhaps this is purposely done to mask lackluster cleaning, but with steam and low vision, it too is a pet peeve.
Here’s a separate but related issue that requires checking. bottles before getting into the shower.
Is there enough product in the bottle? I learned my lesson after pressing the pump on the shampoo bottle…and nothing came out. Bottle was empty.
Now the bottle-check for “which” and “how much” is part of my room arrival routine.
I can totally related. LOL
*relate
I am 66 years old, and brother – do I feel your pain! Many hotel showers were left wet when I had to step out to get my glasses. Spoiler alert: it will get worse as years go by. Sorry.
The middle-tier hotels are often the worst, trying to appear fancy with the nice-looking branding and big brand name font size, while the brand itself is unknown and not premium.
A big annoyance are the fully-reusable metal dispenser tops, as in my experience the thin metal rod that dispenses product often is loose or falls off. Then I (and others) just try to shove it back into the dispenser. Gross. The all-plastic bottles are the best.
@Gary if this is your biggest age related issue, you will have a long, long life. Yes, it is a nuisance, but part of my room arrival process is to check out the placement of the bottles in the shower.
We may have found the one topic that will unify America. Thank you!
I prefer my own shampoo and can’t understand why anyone would want to bathe with liquid soap. In a twist, without glasses on or contacts in this old man can read just fine.
The joys of modern day travel. Just when I thought that air travel was getting relentlessly crappier, it’s reassuring to see the ‘hospitality’ industry keeping pace …. My own ‘cave’ has never been more appealing !
Actually all three can be determined by testing, with the conditioner being the easiest. Conditioner does not have the degreasing power of the other two so it can usually be determined by feel with fingers or by rubbing on your arm and washing off. Body soap liquid and shampoo are closer but shampoo is usually more fragrant and does a much better with cleaning hair. In a blind test I would pick it by fragrance. Back in my backpacking days I didn’t want to carry multiple items if one could be substituted for another. I bought some backpacking liquid soap that claimed to be good for washing dishes and use as shampoo. It was ok for dishes but not good for shampoo. Afterward I found shampoo is actually very good for washing dishes, just rinse well. Get a two-in-one shampoo that has conditioner in it and it could be used for those things and as a body soap as well, if necessary. For safety and for making sure you have what you want, it is probably best to bring what you like with you. Of course, if you actually like the hotel products, you could bring your own bottles with you and transfer all of the hotel products into them to take with you as they are providing you with larger quantities (sarcasm but only partially.)
Gary – same problem here, and so annoying. The sad thing is the penny pinchers will never implement your reasonable recommendations.
Oh, Gary, how privileged to have your own housekeeper, yet to get miffed when they reorder the placement of your precious ointments. Bah!
For real, that stuff gets to me, too. Then again, I clean my own place, so I’d have to complain to myself. (‘Ah! Did it again! Shame on me!’)
On optometry, I’ve had glasses and wore contacts since I was 13 for varying degrees of myopia, (nearsightedness, as-in, I cannot see far away), but, as we age, usually between 40-65, most of us will experience the opposite, presbyopia (farsightedness, as-in, when you cannot see up-close). Regardless, I have never worn glasses in the shower—you don’t want them to rust, do ya?!
Besides, ‘smart’ folks wear glasses, right? Which is good and all, unless you live in Cambodia during the late 1970s. Well, if you were there then, supposedly you did not necessarily ‘live,’ then again perhaps that was just an exaggeration. Hopefully, we’re not witnessing such an anti-intellectual crusade in the USA…because with the way the current regime is targeting universities…well…time will tell.
Check before you get into the shower, and certainly before you turn the water on.
How hard can it be?
Gary – the cruise lines have been doing this for a while now, and some lines make it damn near impossible to figure out what is the shampoo and which is the body wash. Conditioner seems to be fading in popularity.
I just hope some of these lame “Shampoo + Body wash” concoctions don’t end up in hotel bathrooms or cruise ships, though!
Conditioner is easy to identify, shampoo and body wash no. One of my pet peeves. The other one is finding one of the bottles just about empty.
@ Gary. Unlike some numbers I will offer a helpful hint . . . go see Dr. Shannon Wong. I did it last month and it’s ONLY $7100 . . . per eye. (you’re not there yet but Medicare picks up $2000 of that.)
@ Gene. Exactly and it’s the reason I don’t eat TexMex, (exception is Fonda San Miguel in Austin. But then it’s not TexMex.)
I share your frustration with too-small lettering on hotel bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and soap. I remember some years back being at a budget-oriented brand (maybe it was Hampton Inn or something similar?) and the bottles featured GIANT lettering that read only “shampoo,” “conditioner,” and “soap.” There may have been fine print showing the brand, but I was incredibly grateful for this thoughtful BIG LETTER labeling! Sadly, that was the exception rather than the rule!
I agree about the irritating small lettering on stationary shower bottles. But I am also unhappy with hotels that do not have a grab bar in the shower! As for towels, the hotel’s I stayed at in Spain (Hiltons, Marriotts, and Hyatts) all had very very large bath towels — have never seen comparable size towels in U.S. hotels.
@ One Trippe — Not clear what you had done to your eyes, but lens replacement (like that whoich is used for replacing cataract-clouded lenses) is a modern miracle!