Consumer goods manufacturers are slapping exorbitant prices on oddball personal care products such as total body deodorant and razors to remove pubic hair — a new, unwelcome trend in retail known as “upflation.”
Unlike “shrinkflation,” in which companies reduce the size and quantity of items in packages while keeping the prices more or less the same, “upflation” describes how shoppers. are being charged for everyday products that are being marketed for uses that are beyond their initial scope.
Gillette is marketing a “Venus” razor that is used for “pubic hair and skin” which is “specifically designed to help protect” women’s bikini lines from irritation. Each pack can cost up to $15 for a pack of four razors — up from $10 for a traditional razor.
The brand’s parent company Proctor & Gamble, which sells Secret, Old Spice and Dove products, is also charging $14 apiece for total body deodorant — which is about twice the cost of a regular stick of underarm deodorant.
Companies like P&G, Unilever and Edgewell Personal Care are marketing these items in hopes of making up for the lost revenue as shoppers — fed up with surging prices for basics — have cut back on spending for items such as razor blades, shampoo, laundry detergent and deodorants, according to Bloomberg News.
The news site cited data from market researcher Circana which found that retailers sold 20% fewer razor blades last year compared to 2019.
During that same period, sales of deodorant fell 6.5%.
P&G is also marketing complementary items such as “pubic hair and skin smoothing exfoliant” and “2-in-1 cleanser and shave gel” — charging as much as $13 for a six-ounce tube.
Manscaped has been marketing special grooming equipment for men, including personal groin trimmers that it has compared to toothbrushes — noting that “everyone needs it, no one wants to share it.”
Experts interviewed by Bloomberg News say only the first half of that marketing pitch is true.
Aleta Simmons, a Nashville-based dermatologist, said that “most people” don’t need total body deodorant and that anyone suffering from body odor can make do with antibacterial soaps or a change of clothes.
Megan Smith, Unilever’s senior manager of research and development for its personal care division, told Women Wear Daily that the popularity of total body deodorant can be explained by men and women eager to improve the smell of their intimate areas.
“Men, they’re focused around their chest and private areas, but for women, it’s under bras,” Smith said.
Unilever conducted a survey which found that 15% of Americans sought a whole-body product for odor while research by the Dove Men + Care line concluded that 76% of men would try a whole-body deodorant, while only 2% were current users.
According to Bloomberg News, P&G posted higher than expected sales in its grooming division — a trend that the company partly attributes to the popularity of its total body shaving and hair removal products aimed at intimate areas.
The company declined to provide exact figures to Bloomberg News. The Post has sought comment from P&G.
In recent years, stubbornly high rates of inflation forced consumer goods manufacturers to shrink the packaging size of their products — a phenomenon known as “shrinkflation.”
A small box of Kleenex which originally housed 65 tissues was reduced to 60 tissues while Chobani Flips yogurts shrunk from 5.3 ounces to 4.5 ounces.
Cottonelle Ultra Clean Care toilet paper was shrunk from 340 sheets per roll to 312 and to Folgers coffee downsized its 51-ounce container to 43.5 ounces.
According to the most recent consumer price index report, the price of personal care products rose 1.3% in May year-over-year but fell 0.3% compared to April.
Hair, dental, shaving and miscellaneous personal care products were 2.3% more expensive in May compared to the same month last year but 0.3% cheaper compared to April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Inflation for Personal care products soared over the course of the last two years. In 2022, prices were up 6.08%. Last year, they were up 7.58%, according to federal data.
