Victory! PETA Pushes Edgewell to Ban Badger-Hair Brushes

For Immediate Release:
March 22, 2021

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

After PETA shared with Edgewell Personal Care a badger-hair industry exposé showing badgers spinning in circles inside dirty cages before workers slit their throats, the locally based company—which owns Wilkinson Sword, Cremo, Skintimate, and Schick, among other brands—just banned the use of badger hair for brushes. In thanks, PETA sent Edgewell a box of delicious vegan chocolates.

“On badger-hair farms, these animals are deprived of the opportunity to dig, forage for food, choose mates, or do anything else that would make their lives worth living,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “By banning the sale of badger-hair brushes, Edgewell is helping PETA push the personal-care industry in a kinder direction.”

PETA Asia’s investigation into the Chinese badger-hair industry revealed that badgers exhibit behavior patterns indicative of severe psychological distress, such as pacing back and forth. Many badgers suffered from untreated injuries, and one was even missing a leg. Slaughterhouse workers beat screaming badgers over the head with anything that they could find, including a chair leg, before slitting their throats. Other badgers are captured illegally using snares, even though they are a protected species.

Procter & Gamble, the parent company of The Art of Shaving, was the first company to ban badger-hair items after the release of PETA Asia’s video, and nearly 100 others have followed suit, including L’Oréal, Morphe, The New York Shaving Company, Beau Brummell, NARS, and Bonanza.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.