Lay My Hat

I provide each of my guests with a bath towel, a hand towel and an individual bathmat - colour-coded to their bedroom/bed linen.

This means there is no soggy bathmat hanging around for the last person on the bath rota to 'enjoy' and no risk of 'cross-infection' through sharing.

Seems simple enough to me and very common in French hotels. We are in France.

So, why (oh why?) do a party of six people choose to share one bathmat for all their showering and bathing for a week and, in between times, use it as a floor mop? And, why, when they do this, do they always choose the white one?

Do what we did, only provide one colour called taupe. Has worked perfectly over the last 7 years since we got rid of anything white, which we had for the previous 5 years and were constantly struggling to keep that colour.
Granted whenever you buy replacements it is a slightly different tone but they always blend in with what remains of the old lot.
And yes all our personal towels and bedlinen are white and it never is an issue, which is the difference when it is your own..

Guests.....they never fail to get us guessing do they? Our latest guess.....why would you remove the sticky tape, that says don't remove, from the heating control and turn the heating on......when it is 32 degrees and 25 degrees at night?

Mousie
x
p.s. duck boards are a good, environmentally friendly alternative to bath mats.

chipiechoo wrote:Do what we did, only provide one colour called taupe..

Ah yes, (and please excuse my crudeness) it's what my friends here, also in the rental business call Sexstain Brown. On their advice we've been gradually changing all our towels over to this wonderfully forgiving colour... no problems at all this summer!

I was doing a mid-stay linen and towels change at the weekend, the guests had said they'd be leaving for a full day out around 8am and I was welcome to go in any time after that. Went in at 10 to find the heating in every room (each room can be individually controlled on its own thermostat) cranked up to 25C and all the upstairs windows open!

All my guest towels and bath mats are mid grey. I supply a bath sheet and a bath towel per person, with hand towels in bathrooms/ WCs. Still going strong after 6 years. Only had to replace a few hand towels with bleach marks - hair dye?

Giraffe wrote:All my guest towels and bath mats are mid grey. I supply a bath sheet and a bath towel per person, with hand towels in bathrooms/ WCs. Still going strong after 6 years. Only had to replace a few hand towels with bleach marks - hair dye?

We find most bleach marks are down to teenagers skin 'care' products, god knows what it does to their skin.

I've tended towards white because I can bleach them if need be but I do take the point about taupe and grey not showing stains etc.

One set of bath/hand towels are mid blue and two of the hand towels and a green set bit the dust due to skin care which is, usually, acne treatment cream.

The sun cream stains I have learnt (via this forum) how to treat and, as we speak, a selection of towels are in soak.

We didn't supply towels

I've always supplied taupe or mocha towels. In 14 yrs I have never had a stain apart from the bleach marks from acne face creams. I've never regretted not going down the white towel route that was very very popular when we started.
a) white towels eventually go off white or grey
b) if you bleach them it affects the texture/softness
c) why add battling stains to your already long list of things to do on a changeover.

'non white towel' Mousie
x

I can see I am in the minority here with using white even though it is only one room of three.

But, my original point was that when there are coloured bath mats etc. to use why do the whole family choose to use the white one and give it such a hard life!

GillianF wrote:I can see I am in the minority here with using white even though it is only one room of three.

But, my original point was that when there are coloured bath mats etc. to use why do the whole family choose to use the white one and give it such a hard life!

Because it's there

I suspect that at home they'll share just one bath mat
So that's what they do on holiday.

I've always used navy towels and no stains in 12 years - have even managed to avoid the dreaded acne cream so far.

Each of our rooms have their own color of towels...very good quality and colors on darkish side...have lasted for 8 years and will only be replacing some at end of season because edges are fraying...
We are frequently amazed at the things some guests do....one recent guest used the provided bathrobe as an extension of their bathmat....???