A 22-second video from an Australian fashion entrepreneur warning travellers not to use the big refillable shampoo, conditioner and body wash bottles bolted to hotel showers has hit more than 2.1 million views. Her case for eschewing these products rests on a single claim. People, she says, tamper with them.

Brittney Saunders (@brittney_saunders), the founder of Australian fashion label Fayt and a creator with more than 495,000 TikTok followers, posted the clip from a hotel room. “Basically just don’t use anything in a hotel xx,” she captions the video, signing off with a brisk “Good night.”

The PSA

“Just in case your day wasn’t already [expletive] enough, I thought I would remind you to never use the big bottles that are in hotels—shampoo, conditioner, body wash—because some people tamper with them and put things in them,” Saunders says in the video. “The same way that apparently some people boil their dirty undies in the kettles at hotel rooms.”

Some commenters took it at face value. “New fear unlocked, thanks,” Lauren’s Pack wrote.

Is She Right?

However, the claim seems to be overblown for most travelers at most hotel chains. Industry replies on the same post made clear that the wall-mounted dispenser bottles common in modern rooms are designed specifically to defeat tampering.

A commenter who said they work for a company that supplies the bottles to hotels worldwide wrote, “You can not open the bottles with these ones. The bracket needs a key to open. You would physically have to break the bottle.” Nayscatsncars, who said they work in hotel amenities, was more specific, writing, “These particular ones are in tamper-proof brackets. The tops cannot be opened without the housekeeping key to open the wall bracket to then access the bottle.” Frankandbeans, an active housekeeper, added that even with the key, “I struggle to get it unlocked.”

Saunders herself acknowledged the point in replies. “Haha yes some are lockable which is great!!” she responded to Nayscatsncars. To a motel night manager whose property had just installed the bracket-style dispensers, she replied, “If they’re locked I think it’s fine hahaha.”

That said, the “some” is doing real work. Several commenters who said they had worked in housekeeping in different markets noted that when bottles run empty, staff can refill them—and that not every property uses a true tamper-proof bracket. Svenska Vibbar wrote, “I used to work in housekeeping. When the bottles are empty, anyone can open and fill them again.” Other commenters posting from hotels in Europe said they had been able to open the bottles in their rooms.

Saunders didn’t respond to an email sent to the address listed on her brand’s link tree.

The Sustainability Trade-Off

The move to refillable bottles is real, but it is not necessarily related to fears of tampering. In August 2019, Marriott announced it would eliminate single-use shower toiletry bottles from its properties worldwide by December 2020, replacing roughly 500 million tiny bottles a year with larger pump-topped fixtures and cutting amenity plastic use by about 30%. IHG, Hilton and Hyatt have followed with their own commitments.

Commenter Jessica Lake made this point in the thread: “Those bottles are used for sustainability reasons. Hotels have an immense amount of waste, and those larger bottles being refilled helps to drastically reduce their single-use plastic.”

What About The Kettles?

Saunders’s parenthetical about hotel kettles—that “some people boil their dirty undies in the kettles at hotel rooms”—drew almost as many replies as the shampoo claim. She’s alluding to a viral travel story that has been a recurring talking point on the platform for years.

Several housekeepers in the comments said they had seen far stranger things in kettles. Kat King wrote, “I worked cleaning hotel rooms. Can definitely say this happens. They also cook two-minute noodles in the kettles too.” Janne countered, “We had people boil a lobster in the hotel kettle.”

A flight attendant said the rumor has put her off using kettles altogether; another commenter who identified as cabin crew told the thread to relax: “Let’s not get everyone paranoid. It’s literally fine guys—I’m doing it day in, day out for four-plus years now.”

For anyone who’d rather not stress-test the kettle question, Just Jane offered a common sense workaround, writing, “I do a boil and dump before I use the kettle. But honestly, boiled jocks won’t stop me making a coffee in the morning.”

@brittney_saunders

Basically just don’t use anything in a hotel xx

♬ original sound – Brittney Saunders