For hundreds of years, men and women have been shaving their faces and bodies. And for about the same length of time, the industry has been controlled by a ruling minority. But that’s changing.
In the US, startups such as Dollar Shave Club and Billie have been challenging the Gillettes and Schicks of the world for market share over a task many of us perform daily (though Billie was bought by Schick’s owner, Edgewell, in 2021). In Australia, disruption has been slower, but two new, female-founded brands are trying to make shaving easier and, in the case of one, far more luxurious. Have women been shortchanged when it comes to shaving? These founders think so.
Credit: iStock People may know Rebecca Harding as a model, influencer and fiancée of TV personality Andy Lee (Lee works for Nine, the publisher of this masthead). Now, she can add entrepreneur to her CV after teaming with beauty and content specialist Ingrid Kesa to launch LUI, a brand centred around a razor that would look at home in any bathroom “shelfie”. The pair spent three-and-a-half years developing LUI, during which time they spoke to hundreds of women about their attitudes to hair and hair removal.
“We found that 98 per cent of women, regardless of whether they have had laser hair removal still own and use a razor regularly,” says Harding. “In fact, it was one of the products that was most used but most disliked in their shower recess.” While the LUI razor is conventional in its shape, Harding s.
