Why do dry cleaners charge women more

From shampoo to shaving cream and razors, it's more expensive to be a woman. Now CBS News has tracked down yet another place where gender price discrimination is thriving: the dry cleaners. What they found is that the female producer was charged at least twice as much in more than half the businesses they visited.

What is surprising is that extends to services like dry cleaning as well. Close X. Click to scroll back to top of the page Back to top. By Arti Patel Global News. Posted October 19, am. Smaller font Descrease article font size - A. Share this item on Facebook facebook Share this item via WhatsApp whatsapp Share this item on Twitter twitter Send this page to someone via email email Share this item on Pinterest pinterest Share this item on LinkedIn linkedin Share this item on Reddit reddit Copy article link Copy link.

Story continues below advertisement. Leave a comment Comments. It's not true across the board, of course — the cheap pink women's razors are still cheap, and there are some fantastically expensive men's razors out there. That University of Central Florida study found higher prices on women's razors and body spray than men's, but those results weren't statistically significant.

And there are some companies that maintain similar prices for similar women's and men's products. But you don't need a scientific study to know there's a difference between men's and women's spending on looking presentable. It's common for dry cleaners to charge more for women's shirts than men's shirts, and for hair salons to charge more for women's cuts of any length than men's cuts. In addition, women are the primary consumers of all sorts of products men don't often concern themselves with, like makeup.

On Walgreens. There are a few reasons women are paying more for certain goods and services. Not really knowing or thinking about this pricing gap is certainly part of it — as a woman, it's easy to pick the Powder-Fresh deodorant and never give the stick of Cool Rush a second thought.

The problem is that we're kind of lulled into not doing anything about it," says Emily Spensieri, president of Female Engineered Marketing, a Toronto-based firm that has represented Schick and Sears, among other companies.

She adds that women develop "relationships" with brands and are more brand-loyal than men. If that's true, it could explain why women might pay more for a razor that's priced too high.

And in some cases, there are legitimate differences between men's and women's clothing. According to Kebba Gaye, a managing partner at the Press Dry Cleaning and Laundry in Washington, DC, high-priced ladies' dry cleaning has to do with actual differences in the clothing.

Men's dress shirts tend to be standard in shape and material — often cotton, with two long sleeves, one button-up front, maybe a pocket or two — and one machine can press all of them. Women's shirts, on the other hand, are far more varied — sleeveless, rayon, cap-sleeved, buttoned, silk, pullover — and can't all be handled the same. But he says he does make exceptions: "If men wear a polyester like Hawaiian shirt, then they'll have to pay more, too. However, there are arguably a few factors at work here.

Women on the whole have longer hair than men's, and longer hair takes more of the stylist's time to cut and blow-dry, as well as more hair product. Furthermore, men — who are more likely to have short hair — will more likely be back to the salon more often for touch-ups.

He explained that women's products often enter the country with a higher import tax. Ultimately, Cone believes that it's up to the consumers to make the necessary reforms. News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. Special Projects Highline. HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes.