Olivina Bans Badger-Hair Brushes After PETA Exposé

Nashville-Based Company Joins Chorus of Opposition to Trapping and Violently Killing Badgers for Shaving Brushes

For Immediate Release:
October 3, 2018

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

After PETA shared a horrifying video exposé of China’s badger-brush industry with Nashville-based personal-care company Olivina Men, the brand has banned badger hair. PETA Asia’s eyewitness investigation revealed that in order to make brushes used for shaving, makeup, and paint, “protected” badgers are illegally captured using snares and other cruel methods while others are bred and confined to small wire cages on farms before being violently killed.

On Chinese badger-hair farms, PETA Asia documented that workers beat crying badgers over the head with anything that they could find, including a chair leg, before slitting their throats. One animal continued to move for a full minute after his throat had been cut, and another was missing a foot, which the farm owner attributed to a fight with a badger caged nearby.

“Personal grooming shouldn’t come at a great personal cost to badgers or any other animal,” says PETA Director of Corporate Affairs Anne Brainard. “PETA applauds Olivina Men for its compassionate decision, which will spare badgers from going insane inside tiny cages and being beaten to death for shaving brushes.”

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.

Cruelty-free synthetic shaving brushes are readily available online and in department stores. Olivina Men sells online, and its products are available from Target, Amazon, and Urban Outfitters.

Procter & Gamble, the parent company of The Art of Shaving, was the first company to ban badger-hair products after the release of PETA’s video, and numerous others have followed suit, including Penhaligon’s of London, The New York Shaving Company, Beau Brummell, and Bonanza. PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—is now calling on Baxter of California and Dick Blick Art Materials to follow suit.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.