The Mystery of the Missing Hotel Toothpaste (2013)

I'm on the road 30-90 (or more) days a year.

I bring my own:

Shampoo (Cant stand the smell of most hotel shampoo), Soap (I like Dr. Bronners in the Bar, also, see above), Toothpaste (I'm preferential to colgate with fluoride), Deodorant (Unscented), Aftershave, Q-Tips, (2) Razors, Antacids plus a bevy of other personal care products.

I don't use most of the toiletries left by the hotel, they don't smell good (though they seem to do just fine with cleaning) - Mostly I just don't relish smelling like 'Citron Citrus Explosion with Mango and Green Tea extract' for 3-4 hours after I shower. The rest of the stuff is so I don't have to go look for a 7-Eleven or Drug Store (usually in the middle of the night) in a strange city to fix whatever ails me. It also helps make travel more bearable, because then I feel more like I would if I was at home.

So I suspect the real reason hotel's have no toothpaste in the rooms, is most travelers prefer to bring their own.

Bringing my own shampoo is a hassle, because I buy shampoo in normal-sized many-use bottles that are quite large and might leak.

Bringing my own soap is even worse, because nobody wants to carry around a slimy wet cake of soap.

Bringing my own toothpaste is easy, because it's small, and I get the brand whose taste I'm accustomed to. Also, I've got to bring my toothbrush with me anyway, so the toothpaste as well isn't a big problem.

Now, shaving cream, on the other hand, is an item that's a bit of a hassle to cart around with me.

Toothpaste is heavily branded in a health related fashion that makes it hard for hotels to get away with fake botique and paying for a real brand risks offending users of a "higher" or competing brand. Then there are also the foreign patrons who will find local brands funny at best.

This is notable in that the one hotel that carried toothpaste felt they had to say which brand. (They were right, I once stayed at a hotel with generic foreign toiletries and only the toothpaste triggered ill ease: wondering whether potentially tainted toothpaste or skipping toothpaste was the higher risk.) But they had also chosen the wrong brand if they have foreign patrons as aquafresh has very little presence abroad.

Maybe shaving cream isn't standard because in the mid 19th century when the tradition got started, it was traditional for travelers to carry their own beard.

Oddly I've had disposable tooth brushes and paste in airlines business class goodie bags.

Used to keep them for guests at home.