D.R. Harris Plastic-Free Toiletries at The Beaumont Hotel
Well, this is raising the bar (in this case, the shampoo bar) for hotel beauty goodies.
Recently, Jo was fortunate enough to spend a night at The Beaumont Hotel in Mayfair (the perfect, relaxing antidote to 11 days of Christmas guests, BTW). Leaving aside the best in-room library ever (chosen originally by The Beaumont’s co-founder, Jeremy King – also of The Wolseley, The Delaunay etc.), the flawless service, the scrumptious corn pancakes for breakfast and the stupendous view over Mayfair’s fascinating roofscape, she was thrilled to bits to discover the hotel’s move towards plastic-free status for its guest body and haircare products.
This is a first among Northern European hotels, to be rolled out over the next few months (Jo got a sneaky peek during her stay). Every year, hotels throw away millions and millions of barely-used bath and body products, shampoos and conditioners (32,000 single-use plastic bottles a year, in the case of this spiffy Art Deco-style hotel). But moving forward, all of The Beaumont’s – created by D.R. Harris, London’s oldest pharmacy and purveyor of grooming and skincare lines – will be repurposed and recycled.
As The Beaumont’s General Manager, Jannes Soerensen, comments: ‘It is no longer acceptable for the hotel industry to continue to pollute the world with all this single-use plastic in the name of luxury. To us, luxury means enabling our guests to live more sustainably without compromising on quality or the guest experience.’
They look great, smell good – and isn’t the packaging all the more gorgeous for knowing that it’s green, as well as super-chic black and white…?
The Beaumont, 8 Balderton Street, Brown Hart Gardens, London W1K 6TF/020-7499 1001
PS D.R. Harris can be found nearby; they began at 11 St. James’s Street around the corner from the hotel (and are now based in Piccadilly at 29 St. James’s Street). Definitely worth a beauty/grooming pilgrimage, we say.