Edgewell Personal Care, the company behind brands like Schick, Banana Boat, Wet Ones, and Playtex, is quietly reshaping where its products are made.
In the U.S., that means two major manufacturing plants are now on a slow march toward closure.
At the same time, a massive new facility in Mexico is coming online and consolidating production there.
Taken together, it’s a textbook case of a global consumer company shrinking its American footprint while betting big on cheaper labor and larger plants abroad – and hoping customers don’t notice.
Two U.S. Plants Marked For Closure
In Knoxville, Tennessee, Kaitlin Riordan of WBIR 10 News reports that Edgewell has filed a WARN notice with the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development announcing the closure of its East Knoxville manufacturing plant.
The facility on Media Drive will begin winding down on June 1, 2026, and is expected to be completely shuttered by December 31, 2027.
According to Riordan, 132 workers will be affected by the closure.
Edgewell told Riordan the move is part of a “broader strategic business decision” and emphasized that the shutdown will happen in phases. The company says it is “focused on our employees’ wellbeing” and promises transition support, including counseling, résumé help, interview prep, and tuition reimbursement for upskilling.
On paper, that sounds responsible.
But for people who’ve built their lives around a stable manufacturing job, “strategic” and “phased” are corporate words that don’t do much to calm the stress of a looming end date.
Nearly 300 More Jobs Lost In Connecticut
The bad news doesn’t stop in Tennessee.
Bailey Allen of the Norwich Bulletin reports that Edgewell will also shutter its Schick razor manufacturing plant in Milford, Connecticut, leading to 293 permanent layoffs.
Allen notes that Edgewell filed a WARN notice on Nov. 13 and plans to close the Milford facility by December 31, 2027 – the same year Knoxville goes dark.
The plant sits at 10 Leighton Road in Milford and has long been a key production site for Schick razors.
In a letter to the Connecticut Department of Labor, plant director Jeff Wilson wrote that all affected employees will be eligible for severance benefits and outplacement assistance to help them transition to new jobs. He also said workers will receive at least 60 days’ notice before their individual termination dates.
Allen reports the layoffs at Milford will start in March 2026, with cuts continuing through late December 2027.
In total, between Knoxville and Milford, you’re looking at over 400 U.S. manufacturing jobs disappearing over roughly the same two-year window.
Edgewell is also in the middle of reshaping its product mix.
Riordan notes that just two days before filing the Knoxville WARN notice, the company sold its feminine care business to a Swedish company for $340 million, a move that suggests it’s leaning harder into razors, sun care, and other core lines while shedding side categories to raise cash and refocus.
Mexico Mega-Plant Grows As U.S. Lines Shrink
So where is all this work going?
That’s where Luther Turmelle of CT Insider comes in.
Turmelle reports that Edgewell officials have been tight-lipped about where the work from the Milford Schick plant will land once the plant closes by 2027. Company executives repeatedly declined to say, citing “competitive reasons.”
But Turmelle points out that Edgewell operates two key manufacturing facilities closest to its Shelton, Connecticut headquarters: Knoxville, Tennessee and Aguascalientes, Mexico.
Knoxville, of course, is now on the chopping block too.
And Aguascalientes is booming.
Turmelle notes that in August 2024, Edgewell announced a $115 million investment in a nearly 593,000-square-foot factory in Aguascalientes, in north-central Mexico. A later SEC filing, Turmelle reports, said the new facility is meant to consolidate production from Mexican plants in Obregon and Mexico City into a single large production hub.
In other words, Mexico is where the company is building its sustainable future — larger, centralized, and presumably cheaper.
The U.S. plants, by contrast, are being peeled off and slowly shut down.
Edgewell won’t say outright that U.S. razor production is heading to Mexico. But when American factories close and a giant new plant opens south of the border, the pattern isn’t hard to see.
Experts Warn Of “Hidden Costs” In The Mexico Play
Turmelle’s reporting also brings in outside voices questioning how smart this strategy really is.
Site-selection consultant John Boyd tells Turmelle that relocating manufacturing to Mexico is not as simple as “cheaper labor equals easy savings.” He warns that there are “a lot of hidden costs in relocating to Mexico,” from logistics and security to reputational issues when an “iconic American brand” shifts work offshore.
Boyd even suggests that, if Edgewell insists on moving work out of Milford, a domestic move to Knoxville would have made more sense — offering “significant savings” relative to Connecticut without the backlash that could come from moving production outside the U.S.
But now Knoxville is closing too.
That implies Edgewell is looking beyond internal U.S. reshuffling and doubling down on the Mexico model, despite those warnings.
Economist Donald Klepper-Smith, quoted by Turmelle, says any move of Schick production to Mexico or other foreign locations could easily backfire.
Yes, labor is cheaper, he says, but whatever savings Edgewell gains could be “mitigated by tariffs.” With trade policies shifting from administration to administration, Klepper-Smith notes, “you don’t know how they’re going to land, where they are going to land.”
That uncertainty means a company can lock itself into a foreign production system only to see the math change almost overnight if tariffs rise or trade rules tighten.
From a distance, it looks efficient. Up close, it’s a risky long-term bet.
Communities Left To Absorb The Blow
Allen reports that Connecticut officials were given no advance notice that the Milford Schick plant would be closed. Turmelle adds that Jim Watson, spokesman for the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development, said the agency “can not provide any additional information” about the closure and clearly hadn’t been looped in early.
In Knoxville, Riordan notes that Tennessee’s East Workforce Development Board rapid response team has been alerted and will coordinate services for affected workers.
That’s all good and necessary.
But rapid response teams and severance packages don’t replace a lost anchor employer overnight. These plants are not just job sites – they’re economic engines for local businesses, tax bases for cities, and a key piece of how hundreds of families plan their futures.
There’s also a trust problem baked into moves like this.
When a company like Edgewell tells workers and communities it’s committed to American jobs, then quietly invests nine figures in a huge Mexican plant while planning slow-motion closures in the U.S., people understandably start questioning whether the next reassuring statement will mean anything at all.
From the outside, you can see the financial logic.
Riordan’s report notes that Edgewell recently posted a 1.3% decrease in net sales from the prior year, and the sale of its feminine care line suggests a company under pressure to streamline and improve margins. Building a giant, consolidated facility in Mexico looks like one way to do that.
But from the ground, in Knoxville and Milford, the story feels very different:
American workers are being told to train, retrain, and then step aside.
Offshoring, Branding, And The Risk Of Overreach
Turmelle’s experts hint at a deeper problem: you can’t separate where a product is made from what the brand stands for.
Schick razors, Wet Ones wipes, Banana Boat sunscreen – these are everyday American products woven into normal family routines. Moving more production to Mexico may not show up on the shelf, but it can show up in the story people tell about the company.
Boyd warns that there’s reputational risk when “an iconic American brand” shifts work abroad. Klepper-Smith warns that tariffs and policy swings can erase cost savings. And Allen’s and Riordan’s reporting makes clear that hundreds of American families are bearing the brunt of those decisions.
None of that means Edgewell is evil for wanting to cut costs or reorganize.
But it does mean there’s a gap between how these decisions are explained in boardrooms and how they’re felt in factories, neighborhoods, and small businesses that depend on plant workers’ paychecks.
If Edgewell’s Mexican operations flourish while its U.S. manufacturing footprint shrinks, the company may find that the real “hidden cost” isn’t just tariffs or logistics.
It may be the slow erosion of goodwill in the very markets where its brands still rely on trust, familiarity, and a sense that the company is invested in the same communities that buy its products.
For now, the bottom line is simple.
As Riordan, Turmelle, and Allen each document from different angles, Edgewell is closing two U.S. plants, cutting more than 400 American jobs, selling off one major product line, and pouring major money into a huge factory in Mexico.
Whether that bet pays off for shareholders is an open question.
For workers in Knoxville and Milford, though, the cost is already perfectly clear.
Mark grew up in the heart of Texas, where tornadoes and extreme weather were a part of life. His early experiences sparked a fascination with emergency preparedness and homesteading. A father of three, Mark is dedicated to teaching families how to be self-sufficient, with a focus on food storage, DIY projects, and energy independence. His writing empowers everyday people to take small steps toward greater self-reliance without feeling overwhelmed.
