Exclusive | Major retailers stop selling brushes made with badger hair
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PETA has badgered a bevy of big-name retailers into dropping products made from the cruelly harvested hair of the animals, The Post has learned.
At the animal rights group’s urging, companies including Neiman Marcus, Ulta, Kohl’s and Michael’s quietly stopped selling brushes made from badger hair over the past couple of months.
Target began removing paint and shaving brushes made from badger hair from its website that are listed by third party sellers only after The Post reached out for comment last Friday.
CEO Michael Fiddelke received two emails from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in April and May, the group said.
Target is looking into the matter and removing listings that fall outside of its pro-badger policy — including a set of three paint brushes for $68.32 that were on its website on Monday and men’s shaving brushes that were removed on Friday — said company spokesman Brian Harper-Tibaldo.
Target bans the use of fur, hair, whiskers and feathers in merchandise that are not derived from the food supply chain, according to its website.
“High-quality synthetic brushes meet or exceed the performance of animal hair brushes, “ PETA president Tracy Reiman wrote in an email to Fiddelke.
To make its case to retailers, PETA showed them a gruesome five-minute video of a spring investigation it launched into China’s badger-brush industry.
It shows one of the creatures being beaten and stabbed while still alive at a badger fur farm in China, the largest supplier of the bristles that are used in shaving, makeup and paint brushes. Other grisly details show stressed animals in tiny cages, some with open wounds.
PETA’s first badger farm investigation in 2018 resulted in more than 100 companies dropping products made from badgers, including L’Oreal, Shick, Sherwin-Williams, Sephora and Procter & Gamble, which owns the Art of Shaving.
In April and May, Ulta, Kohl’s and Michael’s confirmed in emails to PETA that they had removed badger-hair products from their websites, while Neiman Marcus simply removed the items from its site without informing PETA, according to the group.
Ulta had been selling brushes from Muhle and Taylor of Old Bond Street, while Michaels had been selling products from Escoda and Da Vinci.
Over the past few decades, PETA played a major role in making fur unfashionable, targeting major brands including Calvin Klein, Gucci, Chanel and Versace, which have all stopped using the material.
Its aggressive targeting of Canada Goose several years ago – including protesters carrying gruesome posters of dead coyotes outside its stores and at shareholder meetings – resulted in the Toronto parka company ending its use of fur trim by 2022.