Tips To Make Bathrooms Guest-Friendly For The Holidays

As the festive season approaches, there's a magical excitement in the air as homes come alive with the spirit of Christmas. While we eagerly prepare the living room for the tree and the kitchen for holiday feasts, one often overlooked yet crucial space deserves special attention — the guest bathroom. As friends and family gather to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year, ensuring your guest bath is a warm and welcoming haven is paramount. 

In addition to a little bit of décor and ambiance, be sure to dedicate special attention to the guest bathroom's functionality and provisions. This is important whether you have overnight guests or just plan to host a winter holiday soirée. Some might seem a bit obvious like having an extra roll of toilet paper around, but others are less intuitive and will really show you've gone the extra mile for your guest's comfort as a host. You want the bathroom to be a tranquil room for guests that offers plenty of privacy in addition to being clean, well-stocked, and thoughtfully-organized. Here are 13 tips to ensure your guest bathroom is ready for the holidays. 

Look, we won't get into the details, but bathrooms can become smelly very easily, especially guest baths that welcome every holiday visitor. To combat this issue, be sure to have a candle lit before guests arrive. This works for two reasons: one, the bathroom will have a cozy, warming fragrance, and two, there will already be a wafting aroma to cover up any less-than-pretty smells throughout the night. Be sure the candle is out of reach of any little ones and on a stable surface. 

While a candle can go a long way for keeping the scent fresh in a bathroom, it can sometimes help to provide a few other options as well. For instance, Poo-Pourri, which you could buy at Target, is a spray-before-you-go odor-eliminating toilet spritz. You could also leave a basket or bowl of fragrant items like pinecones, orange slices, and cinnamon sticks on the bathroom counter, so long as they are out of reach of children. Just be careful about mixing too many scents, which can be a problem. Mild citrus scents do a great job of masking unpleasant odors in the bathroom without overwhelming the senses. 

Mulled wine, spaghetti sauce, and candy cane stains are bound to happen over the course of any good holiday party, but you don't want guests to panic if they happen to get a little food or beverage on their outfits. Provide a quick-drying stain-removal stick, like the Tide-To-Go Pen (available at Walmart) in the bathroom so they can take care of it themselves privately and quickly. You could either display this on the counter or keep it inside an accessible drawer.

The big winter holiday feast probably tasted great, but nobody needs the reminder between their teeth. You don't need to provide each dinner guest with a toothbrush, but a box of toothpicks or dental floss picks are an easy, affordable addition to add to your bathroom counters. Also make sure there's a bathroom trash can for easy and discreet disposal, of course. 

We can think of very few disasters more devastating than having someone walk in on someone else in the bathroom during a holiday shindig. Prevent this by making sure your bathroom door lock is in perfect working order — no jimmying necessary. If not, make sure to repair or replace the lock in time. Also, be sure it's easy to figure out the locking mechanism to prevent any awkward moments. If you're particularly worried, provide a small note with instructions on how to use the lock on the inside of the door.

Try to have a few hand soap options out for guests so they can choose their favorite scent. A good trio is one holiday-themed liquid soap, one unscented soap for sensitive skin, and one bar soap. You may think to yourself, who doesn't love soap that smells like mulled wine or candy canes? However, the truth is that a lot of people may be averse to fragrances either due to skin or smell sensitivities. Provide options for everyone's comfort. Further, because soap is relatively affordable and lasts a long time, this is a great chance to go the extra mile as a holiday host. 

In addition to hand soap, be sure to have some hand lotion out for folks to use. Between regular hand washing and dry winter air, hands can easily become dry, cracked, and irritated. A lot of holiday hand soaps come with an accompanying cream, but these tend to have perfume and be less hydrating than might actually be helpful. Instead, go for a classic, nourishing, and unscented hand lotion, which you could place right next to the soaps.

It's no fun to reach for a towel to dry your clean hands with and be met with a crusty rag hanging by the sink. To avoid this, make sure to change out all of the hand towels before hosting for the holidays. If you have a large party with lots of people funneling in and out, you may want to swap the hand rag out once or twice during the day so it doesn't become overly wet — ick! 

One of the biggest elements of keeping a bathroom guest-friendly around the holidays is making sure the essentials are available in bulk, especially toilet paper. If you think two rolls of toilet paper is enough for the evening, make it four. Stack them on a shelf, the bathroom counter, or even on the back of the toilet. As long as they are visible and easy to reach, you should be good to go. You could even dress them up with ornaments or lights to make the stack a makeshift Christmas tree.

Unless you have a strict no-shoes policy, people will carry all sorts of gunk, dust, and debris into your bathroom during the winter. Be sure to take your bath mats off of the ground in advance of guests arriving for a party to minimize next-day cleanup. This is beneficial because it's much easier to sweep and mop the floor than it is to remove tough stains, launder, and dry your bath mats the next day. You could fold these up and store them in your linen closet or laundry room for the time being.

There's no need for guests to get a good look at your full skin, hair, and dental routine products. Ahead of a party, move these items into a closet or vanity. If you have guests staying overnight and they don't have a designated bathroom, be sure you can offer them some counter space for the duration of their stay where they can have easy access to essentials like their toothbrush, toothpaste, facial cleanser, and so on. This will go a long way to making them feel comfortable while staying in your home. 

There are lots of little hygiene products we use that we don't give much thought to but that are wholly necessary to keep accessible for guests, especially if they're staying overnight. Cotton pads, balls, and swabs can simply be put in decorative jars and then placed on counters or shelves. If you have any festive holiday-themed containers, this is a perfect opportunity to use them. Pro tip: if you have a Christmas glass candle jar around, remove the wax, clean and sanitize it, and give it new life as a beautiful storage solution that you could display on the bathroom counter. 

Few things can spoil an evening for a guest like being without hygiene products when they need them. Save your guests the trouble of having to ask for products by putting out a variety of feminine hygiene items in a basket on the countertop or under the sink, as long as it's in a location that nobody would have to ask questions to find. You may also want to provide a small note saying the products are for anyone to use and to take as many as needed. This can go a long way to save guests from needless embarrassment and awkwardness.