Published
August 12, 2026
A new class action targets Schick Hydro Silk, the women's razor line made by Edgewell, arguing its "Curve Sensing" and "made for your curves" packaging promises engineering that the cheaper men's Schick Hydro already has. Anyone who has bought the pink cartridges is potentially in the proposed nationwide class — but this is a complaint, not a settlement, and there is nothing to claim.
Allegations Only · No Settlement Yet
This article describes a class action complaint. The statements below are unproven allegations drawn from that filing. Edgewell has not been found liable, no court has ruled on any of these claims, there is no certified class, and there is nothing to claim at this time. This page is informational and is not legal advice.
What Is This About?
A proposed class action accuses Edgewell Personal Care of charging women a premium for a razor that, the suit says, is not meaningfully different from the men's version it already makes. The complaint, Styron v. Edgewell Personal Care Company, was filed on August 3, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Case No. 1:26-cv-06639) by a Bronx buyer of Schick Hydro Silk cartridges, on behalf of a proposed nationwide class, a New York class, and a multi-state class.The theory is narrower than "women's products cost more," and the distinction matters. The complaint does not sue over the price gap by itself — as explained below, New York's gender-pricing statute does not let consumers do that. Instead it targets the packaging: phrases like "Curve Sensing® Blades," a "slim 3-blade design" for "tricky zones," a cartridge "ideal for bikini & underarm zones," and a 40-degree pivot that "flexes around your curves." The plaintiff alleges those claims tell a shopper the razor was physically engineered for a woman's body, when the corresponding men's Schick Hydro cartridge has, in the complaint's words, "a direct functional equivalent" for each of those features and sells for less. Edgewell has not responded to the allegations in any filing this page is based on.
Status
Complaint Filed · August 3, 2026
Styron v. Edgewell Personal Care Company · S.D.N.Y. (1:26-cv-06639) · jury trial demanded
Core Allegation
Packaging promises women-specific engineering the men's razor allegedly already has
Claims under N.Y. General Business Law §§ 349 and 350, ~30 other state consumer statutes, unjust enrichment and fraudulent misrepresentation
Products at Issue
Schick Hydro Silk razor cartridges
Hydro Silk 3, Ultra-Sensitive, Ultimate Pubic Skin Protection and Advanced Moisture · handles excluded
Alleged Price Premium
13.4% to 26.7%, depending on the comparison
Plaintiff's calculations from Schick's archived 2025 direct pricing and July 2026 Target and Walmart listings
Can I Claim?
No — nothing to claim yet
No settlement, no fund, no claim form, no deadline; no class has been certified
Who Is Edgewell? The Company Behind Schick
Edgewell Personal Care is not a household name, but its products are. The company is a publicly traded personal care manufacturer headquartered in Shelton, Connecticut, spun out of Energizer Holdings in 2015, and it owns Schick — which it acquired in 2003. In its own filings Edgewell describes itself as the number two wet shave company globally, behind Procter & Gamble's Gillette, and as a leading U.S. sun care manufacturer.If you have not heard of Edgewell, you have almost certainly used something it makes:
• Schick and Wilkinson Sword — the razor and blade business at the center of this lawsuit, including the Hydro platform sold in both the men's Hydro 5 Sensitive line and the women's Hydro Silk 3 line.
• Banana Boat — the family, sport and kids' sun care line.
• Hawaiian Tropic — the other half of Edgewell's sun care business, known for its scented lotions, oils and after-sun products.
• Edge and Skintimate — the men's and women's shave gels stocked in most drug and grocery stores. The pairing is worth noting here, since Edge and Skintimate are the same gendered men's-and-women's structure the lawsuit challenges on the razor side.
• Wet Ones — the antibacterial hand wipes.
• Cremo and Jack Black — premium men's grooming and skin care lines Edgewell has added to move upmarket.
• Billie — the direct-to-consumer women's shave and body care brand Edgewell bought for $310 million in November 2021, after the FTC challenged Edgewell's earlier attempt to buy Harry's and Procter & Gamble abandoned its own bid for Billie.
Two points of currency matter for anyone reading a brand list about this company. First, Edgewell no longer owns Playtex, Stayfree, Carefree or o.b. — it sold its North American feminine care business, plus global feminine care rights to Playtex, to the Swedish hygiene group Essity for $340 million in a deal that closed on February 2, 2026. Lists that still describe Playtex as an Edgewell brand are out of date. Second, the Billie acquisition means Edgewell now sells women's razors under two banners at once: the mass-retail Schick Hydro Silk cartridges at issue in this case, and a separate direct-to-consumer brand. Neither fact is an allegation in the complaint; both are corporate history, and neither implies wrongdoing.
OpenClassActions.com is a consumer-advocacy and class-action news site, not a claims administrator or law firm. We participate in the Amazon Associates program, and the product links on this page — including links to the Schick razors the lawsuit is about — are affiliate links; we may earn a commission if you buy through them. Those links are provided so readers can identify the products at issue, and they do not reflect any view on the merits of the allegations described here.
The Packaging Claims the Lawsuit Challenges
The complaint reproduces the Hydro Silk cartridge packaging and pulls out the language it says does the deceiving. On the Hydro Silk 3 package, it points to a "slim 3-blade design" pitched at "tricky zones" and a slimmer head described as "ideal for bikini and underarm." On the Hydro Silk Ultra Sensitive package, it points to five "Curve Sensing® Blades" presented as part of the "Hydro Silk® Difference."It then collects a longer list of what it calls the Challenged Marketing Claims from Schick's website and retailer product pages, including "5 curve sensing blades that follow every part of your body (even your knee)," "For a shave that follows all your curves," "Keep your bikini area smooth," "Get expert-level care at home," and Edgewell's description of the line as built for "today's woman" and "designed to get over every curve to every hair and hard-to-reach spot for salon-quality results from head to toe."
The plaintiff's argument is that these read as engineering claims rather than as style or branding. A reasonable shopper, the complaint says, understands "Curve Sensing" and a pivot that "flexes around your curves" to mean the cartridge itself was built differently — and the pink-and-white "Hydro Silk" presentation reinforces that impression rather than creating it. Whether a court agrees that packaging copy of this kind is a factual representation capable of being false, rather than non-actionable puffery, is one of the first real tests this case will face.
What the Complaint Says Is Actually Inside the Cartridge
The heart of the case is the comparison to Schick Hydro, the same platform sold to men. According to the complaint, both lines use three- or five-blade cartridge systems with stainless steel blades parallel in polymer housings, lubricating strips or gel reservoirs formulated with similar ingredients such as aloe and shea butter, skin guard structures, pivoting heads and comparable handle-attachment mechanisms. It alleges both are made on shared grinding and cartridge-assembly lines, from the same materials, with no identified difference in manufacturing, supplier or transportation cost.The complaint also makes a patent argument: it cites Schick Hydro platform patents covering multi-blade cartridges, skin guards, lubrication reservoirs and pivoting heads, and argues that because those patents apply across the Hydro family without distinguishing the gender-marketed versions, and because it identifies no separate patent for the women's architecture, the two share materially identical engineering. That is an inference the plaintiff draws from public patent records rather than from Edgewell's internal specifications, and it is the sort of claim discovery exists to test.
The Plastic Housing — Where the Complaint Concedes a Difference
This section deserves attention because it is where the case is most exposed, and the complaint deals with it head-on rather than hiding it.Comparing the women's Hydro Silk Ultra Sensitive 5-blade cartridge with the men's Hydro Sensitive 5-blade cartridge, the complaint concedes that the women's version has "a large, rounded plastic housing that extends around the perimeter of the women's blade assembly" that the men's version does not. Its response is that the housing is not a blade, not a cutting edge and not a blade-level skin-protection feature, and that it does not cut or remove hair — so its presence does not by itself show that the razor shaves better or that women need it.
The complaint pushes further with two arguments worth reading skeptically in both directions. First, it says that if a larger surrounding housing genuinely helped a razor navigate curved and hard-to-reach anatomy, the same design would presumably appear on the men's razor, since men also shave contoured areas around the jaw, chin, neck, nose and mouth. Second, it argues the enlarged perimeter may be counterproductive for the stated purpose: as a matter of geometry, extending structure beyond the cutting edges increases the head's footprint and can limit how closely the blades reach into recesses and tight areas.
These are advocacy arguments, not test results. The complaint acknowledges the housing "may serve ancillary purposes, such as supporting or enclosing the cartridge assembly," and it offers no engineering study showing the women's cartridge performs the same as or worse than the men's. Edgewell will presumably argue the housing is exactly the women-specific design feature the packaging describes. A court weighing "substantially similar" will have to decide whether a visible structural difference that does not itself cut hair counts as a real difference — and that question, more than the price tables, is likely to decide this case.
The Price Gap: Three Numbers, Not One
The complaint does not allege a single premium. It alleges three, from different sources and time periods, and they do not agree — which is worth understanding before quoting any of them.The largest figures come from Schick's own former direct-to-consumer store, captured in web archives from 2025. The complaint notes Schick no longer sells directly to consumers, and treats the archived pricing as evidence of Edgewell's own intended price structure rather than a retailer's markup:
| Product | Men's | Women's | Alleged premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5-blade refills, 6 ct | Hydro Sensitive — $14.99 ($2.50/unit) | Hydro Silk Ultra Sensitive — $18.99 ($3.17/unit) | 26.7% |
| 3-blade refills | Hydro Ultra Sensitive, 5 ct — $9.89 ($1.98/unit) | Hydro Silk, 4 ct — $9.99 ($2.50/unit) | 26.3% per unit |
The 3-blade row is the one to read carefully, and the complaint flags the issue itself in a footnote. The package prices there are ten cents apart — $9.89 against $9.99. The entire 26.3% premium comes from pack size: five men's cartridges versus four women's. Comparing per-unit price is a defensible way to handle unequal packs, but it means a shopper standing in the aisle would see two nearly identically priced boxes, and the disparity only appears on the shelf-tag unit price.
The current-retail figure is smaller. Checking Target and Walmart on July 1, 2026, the complaint alleges the men's Hydro 5 Sensitive 6-count sold for $14.99 and $14.97 ($2.50 per cartridge) while the women's Hydro Silk Ultra-Sensitive 6-count sold for $16.99 and $16.97 ($2.83 per cartridge) — a 13.4% average premium. That comparison is cleaner: same blade count, same pack size, two national retailers on the same day.
All of these are the plaintiff's calculations from listed prices at chosen moments, not audited pricing data, and they exclude promotions, coupons and store-brand alternatives. The complaint's own numbers therefore span from roughly 13% to roughly 27% depending on which comparison you accept.
Why the Lawsuit Blames Edgewell and Not Target or Walmart
An obvious defense is that retailers, not manufacturers, set shelf prices. The complaint anticipates it.It alleges Edgewell controls pricing upstream through manufacturer's suggested retail prices, minimum advertised price policies, price monitoring and enforcement, authorized reseller agreements and — on information and belief — a higher wholesale price for the women's cartridges. Its argument is that retailers can vary the size of the gap through their own margins and promotions but cannot erase it, because the products enter the distribution chain with different cost bases. It treats the consistency of the premium across different retailers and regions as evidence that the disparity originates with Edgewell rather than with independent retail decisions, and points to the archived Schick.com pricing as confirmation of the manufacturer's own intent.
The wholesale-pricing allegation is pleaded on information and belief, meaning the plaintiff does not claim to have seen Edgewell's wholesale price lists. Whether that survives a motion to dismiss, and whether discovery bears it out, are open questions.
The Pink Tax Argument — and What New York Law Actually Allows
The complaint frames the case against the backdrop of the "pink tax," the pattern of women's versions of consumer products costing more than functionally comparable men's versions. It cites a California Senate Judiciary Committee background paper putting the annual cost to a typical California woman at about $2,381 across goods and services, and Pew Research Center analysis that women earn roughly 85 cents for every dollar men earn.Here is the legal wrinkle that shapes the whole filing. New York does have a gender-pricing statute: General Business Law § 391-u, effective September 2020, bars charging different prices for two substantially similar goods marketed to different genders — with an express carve-out for differences justified by manufacturing time, difficulty, cost, labor, materials "or any other gender-neutral reason for increased cost." But the statute has no private right of action. Enforcement belongs to the state attorney general, who can seek an injunction and civil penalties capped at $250 for a first violation and $500 for each one after.
So a consumer cannot sue under the pink tax law directly, and this complaint does not try. It uses § 391-u a different way: as evidence of New York public policy, arguing that conduct the legislature moved to prohibit is therefore a deceptive act under General Business Law § 349, which does allow private suits and carries statutory damages of $50 or actual damages, whichever is greater, plus treble damages up to $1,000 per consumer and attorneys' fees. That routing is what turns a pricing complaint into a false advertising case — and it is also why the packaging claims, rather than the price gap, have to carry the weight.
The Knowledge Allegations
To support the fraud count, the complaint has to allege Edgewell knew what it was communicating. It builds that from Edgewell's own public statements about how Hydro Silk was developed.Citing a product-launch announcement, it alleges the brand's predecessor spent seven years on research including hundreds of focus groups and testing among thousands of women, identifying what women believed about shaving, skin care, moisturization, contours and hard-to-reach areas, then built Hydro Silk to speak to those beliefs and positioned shaving as part of a "female skincare ritual." It further alleges that Edgewell's women's shaving executives have described testing concepts with consumers and refining colors, packaging, naming and claims based on the results, and have acknowledged that shelf appearance influences purchasing.
The inference the complaint asks for is this: a company that researched exactly which perceptions it wanted to create, and that designs and manufactures both the men's and women's products, was uniquely positioned to know whether the perceived distinctions matched real functional ones. Market research showing a company understood its customers is not, on its own, evidence of deception, and Edgewell has not answered this characterization of its own development process.
Who Is Covered by the Proposed Classes?
The complaint pleads three overlapping classes, all limited to purchases for personal use rather than resale, within the applicable statute of limitations:• Nationwide class: everyone in the United States who bought the Hydro Silk cartridges.
• New York class: everyone in New York who bought them.
• Multi-state consumer protection class: buyers in New York and roughly thirty other states the complaint identifies as having comparable consumer fraud statutes, from Arkansas and Colorado through Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.
Excluded are Edgewell and entities it controls, their officers, directors, employees and legal representatives, the assigned judge and their staff and immediate family, class counsel, and anyone who timely opts out. The complaint estimates the class at "at least hundreds of thousands" of people and invokes federal jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act, asserting more than 100 members and an aggregate amount in controversy above $5 million.
None of this is settled. The plaintiff expressly reserves the right to amend the definitions, and no class has been certified — a nationwide class in particular is difficult to certify in consumer cases where the governing state laws differ.
What the Lawsuit Seeks
The complaint brings five counts: deceptive acts and practices under N.Y. GBL § 349, false advertising under N.Y. GBL § 350, violations of roughly thirty other states' consumer protection statutes, unjust enrichment pleaded in the alternative, and fraudulent misrepresentation. It asks the court to:• Certify the three classes and appoint the plaintiff as class representative.
• Award actual damages, statutory damages and treble damages under New York law.
• Order restitution and disgorgement of what the suit calls the unjustified price premium.
• Award punitive or exemplary damages on the fraud count.
• Permanently enjoin the conduct — including, the complaint specifies, adjustment of the Hydro Silk retail price.
• Award attorneys' fees, costs and pre- and post-judgment interest.
The injunctive request is unusual and worth flagging: the plaintiff says she would buy the razors again but cannot trust Edgewell's pricing and marketing without a court order, and asks the court to adjust the price rather than only to change the packaging. Every item here is a request attached to unproven allegations. No money has been awarded and a court may never award any.
Where This Sits Among Similar Cases
Gender-marketed product claims are a recurring theme in consumer class actions, and the pattern here — a marketing claim that allegedly justifies a price a comparable product does not carry — is the same "price premium" theory behind a lot of current false-advertising litigation. OCA is also following a case over Bayer's One A Day men's preconception multivitamin, which likewise turns on whether a gender-targeted formulation delivers what the label implies, and a suit over Dove's "hypoallergenic" body wash claims in the same personal care aisle.The pricing side of the case rhymes with other current suits over what a displayed price actually means — an iRobot case over Roomba "limited time" offers that allegedly never end, and a Best Buy deceptive-pricing class action. Our explainer on bait-and-switch and drip pricing covers the general terminology.
What makes the Schick case harder than most is the comparison problem. In a mislabeling case the plaintiff can test the product against the label. Here the plaintiff has to prove a negative across two product lines — that no engineering, material or functional feature of the women's cartridge is missing from the men's — while conceding the cartridges do not look the same. That is a heavier lift than it sounds.
Is There a Settlement or Claim Form?
No. This is a lawsuit, not a settlement.• There is no settlement fund.
• There is no claim form.
• There is no payout and no deadline to act.
For money to reach Hydro Silk buyers through this case, the complaint would have to survive the motions Edgewell is expected to file, win class certification, and then either settle or prevail at trial. That path takes years and frequently ends with no payment at all. Anyone who wants to be ready if it does produce a settlement can keep receipts or online order histories showing Hydro Silk cartridge purchases, and watch this page for updates.
One thing readers can act on today has nothing to do with the case: if the price gap matters to you, compare the per-cartridge unit price on the shelf tag rather than the package price. As the complaint's own 3-blade table shows, two boxes ten cents apart can carry a materially different cost per blade once pack size is accounted for.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a Schick Hydro Silk settlement or claim form?
No. This is a class action complaint filed on August 3, 2026, not a settlement. There is no settlement fund, no claim form, no payout and no deadline. Edgewell has not been found liable, no class has been certified, and there is nothing to claim at this time.
Which Schick razors does the lawsuit cover?
The complaint defines the class products as razor cartridges in the Schick Hydro Silk line, including but not limited to Hydro Silk 3, Hydro Silk Ultra-Sensitive, Hydro Silk Ultimate Pubic Skin Protection and Hydro Silk Advanced Moisture. Razor handles are expressly excluded from the definition, and the complaint reserves the right to change it after discovery.
What other brands does Edgewell Personal Care own?
Edgewell Personal Care owns Schick and Wilkinson Sword razors, Banana Boat and Hawaiian Tropic sun care, Edge and Skintimate shave gels, Wet Ones hand wipes, the Cremo and Jack Black men's grooming lines, and the direct-to-consumer women's shave brand Billie, which it acquired for $310 million in November 2021. The company describes itself in its filings as the second largest wet shave company globally behind Gillette and a leading U.S. sun care manufacturer. Edgewell no longer owns Playtex, Stayfree, Carefree or o.b. — it sold its North American feminine care business, and global Playtex feminine care rights, to Essity for $340 million in a deal that closed February 2, 2026.
How much more does the lawsuit say women paid?
The complaint alleges three different figures depending on where and when the comparison is drawn. It calculates a 26.7 percent premium and a 26.3 percent per-unit premium from Schick's own 2025 direct-to-consumer pricing captured in web archives, and a 13.4 percent average premium from Target and Walmart prices checked on July 1, 2026. These are the plaintiff's calculations from listed prices, not audited figures, and Edgewell has not responded to them.
Are the men's and women's Schick razors actually identical?
That is the disputed question at the center of the case, and the complaint does not claim the cartridges are visually identical. It alleges they are substantially similar or functionally identical in blade technology, materials, lubrication and pivoting design, and acknowledges that the women's 5-blade cartridge carries a large rounded plastic housing the men's version lacks. The complaint's argument is that the housing does not cut hair and so does not justify a higher price. Edgewell has not yet answered that argument in court.
Does New York's pink tax law let consumers sue?
Not directly. New York General Business Law section 391-u bars charging different prices for substantially similar goods based on the gender they are marketed to, but enforcement runs through the state attorney general, who can seek an injunction and civil penalties. There is no private right of action. The complaint uses section 391-u as evidence of New York public policy and brings its consumer claims under General Business Law sections 349 and 350 instead.
Who would be covered if the case succeeds?
The complaint pleads three overlapping proposed classes: a nationwide class of everyone in the United States who bought the Hydro Silk cartridges for personal use within the limitations period, a New York class, and a multi-state class spanning roughly thirty other states with comparable consumer protection statutes. No class has been certified, so all three definitions could be narrowed, expanded or rejected.
What should Schick Hydro Silk buyers do now?
There is nothing to file, because there is no settlement. Anyone who wants to be ready if the case ever produces one can keep receipts or order histories showing Hydro Silk cartridge purchases and follow this page for updates. Shoppers who want to compare prices today can check the per-unit price on the shelf tag rather than the package price, since the complaint alleges the gap often hides in differing pack sizes. This page is informational and is not legal advice.
Sources
• Class Action Complaint, Styron v. Edgewell Personal Care Company, et al., No. 1:26-cv-06639 (S.D.N.Y., filed Aug. 3, 2026) — the primary document this page is based on.• N.Y. General Business Law § 391-u — the gender-pricing statute, its gender-neutral-cost exception, and its attorney-general-only enforcement scheme.
• Edgewell Personal Care investor relations — the annual report the complaint cites for Edgewell's 2003 Schick acquisition and its wet-shave market position.
• Schick Hydro Silk product pages — source of the marketing language quoted in the complaint.
• California Senate Judiciary Committee, gender pricing background paper (Feb. 2020) — the source of the $2,381 annual figure cited in the complaint.
• Pew Research Center on the U.S. gender pay gap — the wage figure the complaint relies on for its pink tax framing.
• Essity announcement of the Edgewell feminine care acquisition — the $340 million Playtex, Stayfree and Carefree deal that closed February 2, 2026.
• Edgewell announcement of the Billie acquisition (Nov. 2021) — the $310 million purchase of the direct-to-consumer women's shave brand.
Free settlement alerts
Get notified when new class actions open to claims
Join thousands of readers who get the latest class action settlements you may qualify for — delivered straight to your inbox.
For more class actions keep scrolling below.
Status
Complaint Filed — Allegations Only
Case Title
Styron v. Edgewell Personal Care Company, et al.
Case Number
1:26-cv-06639
Court
U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
Date Filed
August 3, 2026
Defendants
Edgewell Personal Care Company; Edgewell Personal Care Brands, LLC; Edgewell Personal Care LLC
Products
Schick Hydro Silk razor cartridges — Hydro Silk 3, Ultra-Sensitive, Ultimate Pubic Skin Protection, Advanced Moisture (handles excluded)
Claims
N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 349; N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 350; multi-state consumer protection statutes; unjust enrichment; fraudulent misrepresentation
Jurisdiction
Class Action Fairness Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)
Plaintiff's Counsel
Milberg LLC; Lee Segui, PLLC
