packaging as content

February 17, 2009

Hotel Soap

Vintage Toledo Hotel soap. Photo by Flickr user Ms. Atomic. 

My job requires me to live in a hotel three nights a week, so I've gotten to know my hotel soaps pretty well. As a lover of all things miniature and complimentary, hotel soaps delight me to no end. The ones that I have now are more or less functional, but I've gotten really swanky-looking amenities, notably in hotels in Asia.

Hotel soap can have a large impact (negative or positive) on the image of comfort and/or luxury that a hotel is trying to provide. But it's uniquely challenging because it must be economical in terms of space as well as production costs.

In honor of hotel soap (and every mom's habit of collecting millions of them and hoarding them in a box under the sink… "just in case"), here's a roundup of some soaps I wish I had the good fortune of finding in my hotel bathroom.

 

Hotel Soaps and Creams from Radisson Hotels in Frankfurt. They also seem to be available at the Radisson Hotel in Edinburgh. Photo originally uploaded by Flickr users SnowFlyZone and WimKok.

Hotel soaps/creams/shower cap in little coffee-creamer packages. Part of what makes this so awesome is the sweet acrylic display, and the other part is the chuckle I get from body cream in creamer containers.

Hole Soap by Green Natura, found at the Bulfinch Hotel in Boston. Photos originally uploaded by Flickr users Pauldateh and Zippy Suzy.

The copy on this soap by Green Natura reads, "This innovative ergonomically-shaped, waste-reducing soap has been designed to eliminate the unused center of traditional soap bars." Makes sense to me – I never use up those soap bars during my hotel stays, even when I prevent housekeeping from throwing them out. I like the fact that the packaging (which is made from recycled material and printed with soy-based inks) highlights the shape of the soap, although I wonder about the waste material produced by die-cutting that hole. One reasons that they are mulched and recycled again, no?

The soap is sold on Xanterra Parks and Resorts websites, both the Yellowstone one and the Grand Canyon one.

Chic & Basic Soap and Shower Gel, from the Boutique Hotel Chic & Basic in Amsterdam and Barcelona. Originally uploaded by Flickr user Fattytuna

Love the cheeky, simple packaging. Very current, and totally embodies the hotel's eponymous design persona.

Simply Smart soaps from Holiday Inn Express in Manhattan, photo originally uploaded by Flickr user Liquisti.

I was surprised to find that these cute, polished-looking soaps came from a Holiday Inn Express in Manhattan. Clever way of using type to sophisticate the packaging look, even if the rest of the packaging is incredibly simple.

Tracce Amenities, source unclear. Best Western in either Canada or Rome, from what I can tell. Photo originally uploaded by alexydiary.

Like the simple geometry, colors, and typography on this one. At first glance, I thought that the tubes screwed in from two sides, like those mascara and lip gloss tubes with two types, until I figured out that the image was simply mirrored. I think that such a double-sided packaging would be cool though; shampoo on one side and conditioner on the other side?

 
Agua soap from Hudson Hotel in NYC, originally uploaded by Flickr user melaniesage.

That plastic container is apparently not really a package so much as a soap dish (an expensive one), but it does look rather nice. It's also useful for standing the soap upright – an important space-saving consideration when the hotel room is meant to resemble a "ship's cabin." (The hotel was built in a former YWCA.)

Big Texan advertising on soap from unknown hotel, photo by Flickr user Graela.

This last packaging is just amusing for its shameless targeting of tourists. Is nothing sacred anymore? (Then again – hotel soap was never sacred.) Also – free 72 oz steak?!

Melody Chang
Hoards hotel soap

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