News — beard

Sore-faced girlfriends and the leaders of North America’s largest consumer goods companies appear to have at least one thing in common if a recent dip in men’s razor sales is any indication -- both can agree that the beard trend has got to go. Proctor & Gamble, which dominates the razor market with Gillette’s Mach-3, reported last week that razor sales have been falling in developed markets. Battery maker Energizer likewise announced that sales of its Schick men’s razors have dropped 10 per cent in the past year.

Both companies peg the dip on factors such as increasing competition, but some analysts and business reporters place the blame squarely on the checkered, suspender-laden shoulders of today’s scruffy hipster men.

“Are Hirsute Hipsters Killing the Razor Business?” asked Bloomberg’s Kyle Stock in a headline, while Jason Notte of MSN Money lays his thoughts out with a biting verve: “Hope you really like that handlebar mustache and set of pork-chop sideburns, Mr. Vest-Clad Washboard-Playing Mixologist, because they're killing multinational corporations' bottom lines.”