N.Y. Shaving Company Bans Badger-Hair Brushes After PETA Exposé

First-Ever Eyewitness Investigation Reveals Badgers Are Violently Killed on Chinese Farms

For Immediate Release:
September 20, 2018

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

After PETA shared a horrifying video exposé of China’s badger-brush industry with The New York Shaving Company, the brand immediately banned badger hair. All its future bristle purchases will be synthetic.

PETA’s eyewitness investigation revealed that “protected” badgers are illegally captured in the wild using snares and other cruel methods and others are bred and confined to small cages on farms before being violently killed. Badger hair is used for paint, makeup, and shaving brushes sold by companies around the world.

PETA’s exposé—which is the first of its kind and encompasses Chinese badger-hair farms and live markets visited as recently as August—shows workers beating crying badgers over the head with anything they can find, including a chair leg, before slitting their throats. PETA documented that one animal continued to move for a full minute after his or her throat was cut and another was missing a foot, which the farm owner attributed to a fight with a badger caged nearby. Animals on the farms were held in tiny wire cages exposed to the elements, and the stressful conditions often led to injuries and severe psychological disorders.

“The New York Shaving Company was appalled to learn that gentle badgers were caged and beaten to death for shaving brushes,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA urges shoppers and retailers to follow this company’s compassionate lead and stick to soft and luxurious synthetic bristles that no animal suffered for.”

Badgers are extremely social animals who, in nature, construct elaborate underground burrow systems, some of which are centuries old and have been inhabited by many generations of the same badger clan. They are fastidious and have separate rooms for sleeping and giving birth as well as designated outside “bathroom” areas.

Synthetic shaving brushes are readily available online and in department stores.

Procter & Gamble, the parent company of The Art of Shaving, was the first company to ban badger-hair products after seeing the video. PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—is now calling on Baxter of California and Blick Art Materials to follow suit.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.