Victory! Retailers Ban Badger-Hair Shaving Brushes in Advance of Father’s Day

Taipei — With Father’s Day around the corner, it’s important to choose gifts that reflect your values. After PETA alerted Taiwanese companies to its undercover investigation into the badger-hair industry—which showed badgers spinning in circles inside dirty cages before workers slit their throats—FREED, BeardMan, GiftU, and CT-Shop immediately removed badger-hair shaving brushes from their online stores. A representative for FREED, a locally based brand, responded to the group by saying that his beloved dog had just died and that he’d never want to cause harm to any other animal. The company has ceased producing and selling badger-hair shaving brushes and switched entirely to high-quality synthetic materials—and employees now make sure to tell customers that badger hair has a powerful, unappealing odor and is hard to maintain, assuring them that vegan materials are superior.

A badger is confined to a tiny wire cage. Credit: PETA

“Badgers are individuals who don’t want to be caged, beaten, and killed for brushes any more than we would,” says PETA Senior Vice President Jason Baker. “This Father’s Day, let’s honor the compassion and care that fathers embody by choosing gifts that reflect those values. PETA urges other retailers to follow FREED’s lead by banning the sale of badger hair and asks the public to buy only synthetic brushes that leave these remarkable animals in peace.”

PETA’s investigation into the Chinese badger-hair industry revealed that badgers exhibited 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 they could find, including a chair leg, before slitting their throats. Other badgers are captured illegally using snares, even though they’re a protected species.

FREED, BeardMan, and GiftU are among nearly 100 companies—including Momo, L’Oréal, NARS, Morphe, The New York Shaving Company, Procter & Gamble, Beau Brummell, and Bonanza—that have banned badger-hair brushes.

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

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