The Shocking Truth Behind Why Your Hotel Room Never Has Toothpaste Revealed!

Ever notice how hotel rooms are stocked with every luxury soap, shampoo, and even a little sewing kit—but when you reach for something as basic as toothpaste or a toothbrush, you come up empty-handed? Sounds like a simple oversight, right? But nope, the mystery is deeper and way more quirky than you’d expect. It turns out, toothpaste is kind of a diva in the world of hotel amenities—too pricey, too regulated, and oddly “not aspirational” enough to earn a spot next to those fancy soaps. So why haven’t we cracked this peculiar hotel conundrum yet? Maybe it’s time we all start asking—because as strange as it seems, we don’t get toothpaste in our rooms mostly because we never thought to demand it. Curious to know why your holiday smile routine might be slipping through the cracks? LEARN MORE.

In recent years, hotels have stepped up their amenities by offering guests fancy soaps, shampoos, and even quaint sewing kits. But why don’t they have essentials like a mini tube of toothpaste (or a toothbrush, for that matter) in rooms? The answer is surprisingly more complicated than it should be.

A little while back, Slate writer Daniel Engber did a deep dive into the lack of toothpaste in hotels and found out it’s a combination of guests not asking for it and hotels not wanting to spend money on the product. The article stated that toothpaste is “treated like a drug” in terms of regulations, and would therefore be more expensive.

“Toiletries cost less than an oral hygiene product … the cost-per-ounce is lower,” Tim Kersley, former senior vice president at Gilchrist & Soames, a luxury hotel toiletries brand, told Slate back in 2013. “[Non-toothpaste] toiletries have the maximum bang for the buck.”