Men with beards are taking a heavy toll on the razor industry

Procter & Gamble blames Gillette’s $8 billion writedown on ‘lower shaving frequency.’ Read More...

Let it grow.

That’s what some bearded men are doing to save time and, in some cases, money, to boost their own personal brand and professional image. New York native Brett David, 40, went from shaving every day to growing a beard when he turned 33. Letting his facial hair flourish was partly a business decision.

‘I grew my beard out for my bar.’

—Brett David, creative director at Leave Rochelle Out of It, a whisky and cocktail bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side

“I grew my beard out for my bar,” David, the creative director at Leave Rochelle Out of It, a whisky and cocktail bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, told MarketWatch. His business partner had a beard, so David grew his out to cultivate a “bad boys with beards and tattoos open a party bar in the Lower East Side” image, he said.

He’s one of many millennial men ditching razors. Procter & Gamble PG, +1.09% on Tuesday blamed its recent $8 billion writedown on its men’s grooming brand Gillette on millennial men who aren’t shaving as much as previous generations. (P&G did not immediately return a request for comment).

“Lower shaving-frequency has reduced the size of the developed blades and razors market,” P&G Chief Financial Officer Jon Moeller said Tuesday on a call with analysts talking about the markets in the U.S. and Europe. And sharp competition from subscription services like Dollar Shave Club, now owned by Unilever UL, +0.83%, and Harry’s, now owned by Edgewell Personal Care EPC, -0.03%, aren’t making it any easier.

The U.S. men’s market for shaving products has shrunk by over 11% in the past five years, according to data from Euromonitor. The U.S. men’s razors and blades market was worth $2.4 billion 2015 and declined to $2.2 billion in 2018, according to the same report.

We have an ambiguous relationship to men with beards: Beards are increasingly trendy, despite research suggesting that men with facial hair are regarded as more mature, but also dominant and aggressive, according to a 2012 study from the Behavioral Ecology journal.

Another study from the University of Queensland in Australia showed children a photo of a man with a beard and the same man clean-shaven side-by-side and asked them to point out which man looked best. Most kids avoided the bearded men, but kids around the age of puberty associated bearded men with being older and stronger.

Brett David, 40, grew a beard to help cultivate a “bad boys with beards and tattoos open a party bar in the Lower East Side” image, he said. (Courtesy of Brett David).

Being clean-shaven is still associated as looking more professional in some workplaces. Former speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan caused a stir on social media when he shaved his beard, unveiling a clean-shaven look at the State of the Union address in 2016. Barbers, at the time, thought he might have shaved to look more professional in the political landscape.

Men working in health and/or safety industries tend to have stricter workplace policies around being allowed to have a beard. David Miller, 30, from Queens, worked as a lieutenant in a volunteer fire department that enforced a clean-shaven grooming policy when responding to incidents that required a fitted mask, respirator or hazardous materials.

‘Disposable razors are very expensive.’

—David Miller, 30, from Queens, who worked as a lieutenant in a volunteer fire department

When he left that job, he started to grow a beard and enjoyed the freedom that came with the facial hair. “Beards are very trendy right now. I love that it saves me time and hassle in the mornings,” Miller said, adding, “Disposable razors are very expensive.”

As Charles Passy, a MarketWatch contributor and reporter for The Wall Street Journal, wrote of his shaving habits, “When I think of the things I most hate to spend money on, a few quick examples come to mind: airline baggage fees, gourmet pet food (can’t my dog settle for Alpo?) and just about anything connected to the commercial miasma known as the holiday season.”

“But you know what really burns a hole in my wallet and tests my patience at the same time? Buying replacement blades for my Gillette razor. Mind you, I love my Gillette Fusion ProGlide razor, a five-bladed marvel that all but ensures I get a relatively close shave each morning with a minimum of fuss.”

He calculated all the things he could do with the money he spends on disposable blades. “I don’t love the $5 price for a replacement blade, since it equates to a yearly expense of more than $200 — an amount equal to a good dinner at a decent restaurant, even perhaps with a bottle of wine. And trust me: I’d much rather be dining in style than shaving.”

Four Gillette Fusion Razor cartridges cost $11.57 at Walmart WMT, +0.87%. To compare, subscription service Dollar Shave Club charges $7 per month with free shipping on four of its stainless steel, four-blade cartridges, with a handle included in the first box. Subscription service Harry’s, meanwhile, charges $9 for four-pack of its blades ($2.25 each).

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A recent survey of 300 women by Prim&Prep, an online guide to male grooming, found that a higher percentage of women (38%) ranked clean-shaven men as more attractive than men with stubble (24%), full beards (17%), long stubble (15%), a goatee (9%), a mustache (7%) and a circle beard (4%).

Ben Rose, the founder and senior editor of the site, wrote, “Many women responded that the attractiveness of the beard was contingent on the quality and upkeep of the beard. It seems many who have beards don’t do the proper maintenance necessary to keep their beards looking neat, clean and healthy.”

Facial hair has paid off for some men.

“But there has definitely been a significant increase in the number of products available for beard care including a large variety of artisanal beard oils and high-tech beard trimmers,” he added. “They even have specially formulated beard shampoos and beard conditioners.”

His poll also suggested that beards may be more common in rural areas, despite the media focusing on millennial hipsters in urban locales like Brooklyn and San Francisco. More women from city or suburban communities (52%) said they found clean-shaven men attractive compared to women from rural communities (42%).

How women viewed men with facial hair was also broken down along socio-demographic lines: More women with household incomes of $100,000 per year and more found beards unattractive (31%) compared to women earning less than $100,000 per year (18%).

Still, having a beard has paid off for some men. Not only does Brett David never have to pay for razors, he gets free beard oil and beard wash as a brand ambassador for BeardBrand, a men’s grooming company with more than 150,000 followers on Instagram FB, +0.35%. His carefully curated facial hair was also the ultimate marketing move to up the bar’s coolness factor, he added.