So it's acceptable to take soaps and shampoos then? I've always wondered that myself.

@AaronD Yes it is acceptable. Those amenities are considered lost from the moment you check in. The P&L forecast for my location assumes you will dirty every piece of cloth +50%, use every amenity +50%, and damage 5% of rooms. Granted my GM prefers more breathing room.

"should ideally be thrown away whether you use them or not (...) Those amenities are considered lost from the moment you check in." - interesting. While the legal side may certainly deviate from what is practical in real life, I still find it noteworthy that searching for this topic in German brings up loads of (almost finger-wagging) articles from all kinds of otherwise reputable news outlets that explain that even taking away soaps and shampoos is considered "theft", and that more than 50% of hotel guests "steal" such items (or even more, as some might not want to admit they are "thieves").

"We may not like it, but you can substitute toilet paper for towels." Do NOT give people ideas, good sir!!!

What's so disgusting about using toilet paper to dry yourself after a shower? Stupid, ungainly and annoying, yes, but hardly "disgusting". And how exactly would you go about sterilizing it after use? Did you mean substitute towels for toilet paper?

If the hotel has partnered with a luxury toiletry provider, it's likely they, the toiletry brand, want you to take the products to keep using them.

@terdon, he meant the other way around. It is not a problem to "use toilet paper instead of towels" (after a shower), but it is surely disgusting to "use towels instead of toilet paper" (after using the toilet bowl). Poor housekeepers.

@Zanon I guessed as much but since I don't have the rep to edit directly here, I thought I'd point the error out to the OP. That's why I asked "Did you mean substitute towels for toilet paper?"

Damn, does that mean putting dye in the shampoo bottle and replacing the real soap with dirt making soap doesn't work on the next guest? :p

Damn. I had to look up this question and I am still confused.

Are even items that are sealed thrown away?

@Acccumulation at my location the housekeepers are supposed to either way. They insist that being sealed is a guarantee. Their supposed to throw them out. I remember as a kid in Los Angeles during Halloween, the new ran a story about someone who was opening candy, adding arsenic, and resealing the candy. And if someone used a needle to inject something a house keeper wouldn't be able to see it. Not just that, but the packaging could have been contaminated in any number of ways. Allergens, viruses, staph, etc.... Our head housekeeper understands this risk and trains her staff accordingly.

What level of hotel does this? Stars? I suspect a lot do not.

@SpehroPefhany my location is a 3 star facility. Although we have many four star and a couple 5 star locations. Your right most do not, but my location has an outstanding general manager. We pinch pennies elsewhere, specifically in places where it doesn't cost the guest anything, especially risk. We save money by ordering from the right places, using automated systems to control electricity usage, effective utilisation of staff, etc. We actually started being strict about throwing things away when the drugs were found in the shampoo in Texas. It was at request of the RVP that we started that

"Being a supervisor at a well known 3/4 star hotel I speak from experience...." it's great to see an actual, real, informed answer on this site! thanks @KonnerRasmussen Happy New Year one and all!

In my opinion, it is also acceptable to ask for things to be removed from the room, within reason. For example, I once stayed at a hotel that had an old-school large tube TV taking up a lot of space on a table. I wanted to use that table as a workspace and asked the hotel to remove the TV. They cheerfully complied.

@KonnerRasmussen I don't know how old you are, but the only documented instance of poisoned Halloween candy was a Texas man who poisoned his own son's candy in 1974 in order to murder his child to cash in on his life insurance money. He poisoned other children's candy as well, but only his son ate the candy and died.

Does this also explain why they remove partially used items? If I'm staying several days and a single bottle of shampoo or whatever should last that long, and I set them to the side (with my own effects) and it's obvious that I intend to keep using them, why do they insist on throwing them away?

@shoover I'm 24. I don't really know the details of that. I was like 7 or 8. Sometimes I have trouble recalling events from yesterday. But did you really research every possible data source? All of them? I'm not sure about any details involved with that incident. I just kinda remember hearing about it from my mom. Not something I would make any kind of answer. Just figured I would mention it. Maybe it wasn't in Los Angeles. I wouldn't know. I spent my time on homework and Zelda.

@KonnerRasmussen I'm old enough to remember the 1974 incident. There are detailed debunkings with footnoted sources in the Poisoned Candy Myths Wikipedia page (I know WP is not a real source, which is why I say look at the footnoted sources). Also, the efforts to locate a genuine random Halloween poisoner are documented on Snopes. TL;DR: There have been two poisoning deaths in 60 yrs; the insurance filicide and a case where a kid accidentally ingested his uncle's heroin stash.