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Technically I gather they are a Yiddish word for cheap trinkets and souvenirs.
Gordie - my magnificent and much missed director on Entertainment USA and close friend - called the little freebie bits you get given in luxury hotels chachkas.
The shampoos, bath foams, soaps, slippers and so on that you are invited to pop into your bags if unused when you go home - stamped with the name and logo of the hotel.
Well, of course during my 5 month grand tour in the summer I gather a lot of these chachkas; indeed my bags are loaded with them. Cotton buds, toothbrushes, throwaway razors, the top hotels vie with each other to provide the most luxurious chachkas. Which I use throughout the winter.
I just found a little tablet of effervescent bath salts and popped it into my bath. Like a giant disprin, it fizzed and howled angrily and produced an entire tub of sweet smelling white milk in which I luxuriated. I now smell gorgeous. Come and sniff me.