How Gillette embraced the beard to win over scruffy Millennials

For a decade, the shaving company struggled to come to grips with a new generation who don’t see being clean-shaven as a masculine ideal. But a new philosophy on facial hair has turned its fortunes around.

Thomas Buckley

May 18, 2022 – 8.00am

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At 7 am, five days a week, about 70 men badge into an industrial complex in Reading, on the western outskirts of London. A technician leads them down a hallway to cubicles, where they shave in front of mirrors mounted with high-definition cameras.

On the other side of the mirrors, Gillette’s team of blade sommeliers – trained to describe the smoothness of the glide, the stubbornness of the stubble, the pace at which the foam rinses off, and the sound the steel makes when it guillotines hair – debate the effectiveness of razors in development.

Bloomberg Businessweek