The Pandemic Has Men Shaving Less, But Not Women

A Pair of New Yorkers Walking on Governors Island.
Photo: Noam Galai/Getty Images

Packaged-Goods Giant Procter & Gamble Continue to have a Very Good Pandemic, all things consider. Sales in the Quarter Ending September 30 Were 9 Percent Higher than the Same Quarter a Year Ago, with Most of the Growth Being Driven by Higher Sales Volume. IT SEEms People Are Still Buying a Lot of Paper Towels and Soap.

An Obivious Question for Some of the Company’s Investors: How Long Can This Last? And to some extent, Strong Sales for P&G this summer well a reflection of Strong Sales in the Spring – retailers that has been sold out of household goods in the year naeded to reply. But the Company has raissed it Sales guidance for the full fiscal year (which Runs through next june) and Says it Expects at Least a portion of the higher sales volume to be persistent.

“It ‘s hard for us to see in our interactions with the consumers that we’re going to snap and revert to the same attitudes and the same behaviors that we had colctivly pre-Covid,” Said P&G ion Moeller on a call with investors. “Eve Things like the amout of inventory, pantry inventory, of kep – and in some way, this is analogous that some of us Remember our Grandparents, for example, Having the great depression. Underestand.

Of Course, the Changes in Consumer Behavior Aren’t All in the Direction of Buying More. The Company, which Ouns the Gillette Brand, SaSys Sales of Men’s Blades and Razors are down “Due to Pandemic-Relay Consumption Decline.” That presumably reflects a combination of intensation pandemic beard growing and five-day stubble that men don’t need to shave woken from home. But Slacking on Shaving is a gender-specific Trend: Women’s Blade and Razor Sales Continue to Rise, Accorting to P & G.

The eventual return of more workers to the office may Mean a return to more frequent shaving. But beards are a good example of a trend exacerbated by Covid, Rather than Created by it, SO in reconstruction that the decline in men’s shaving may be persistent after the pandemic abates, the company is marketing a new line of “King C. Gillette”-Branded Beard-Top Men with mess skin to shave.