As a vegetarian and overall animal lover myself, I am 100% against animal testing. Call me crazy, but the idea of having rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, and other animals blinded, poisoned, and even killed just to test out some cosmetics is disgusting to me. If an ingredient has the possibility to be so dangerous that you can't test it on humans, why would you want to put that out into the market, anyway? This is something I just don't (and don't really want to) understand about cosmetic companies.
A lot of well-known brands that you see in the drug store, or even high end make up stores, are often owned by a bigger parent company. The parent company will have its own rules and regulations about animal testing, but the subsidiary brand is usually free to do what it wants in terms of animal testing.
In my opinion, if the brand I'm about to give my money to doesn't condone animal testing, isn't selling their products in China (where animal testing is a LAW in order to put a product on the market), and isn't purchasing their ingredients from a company who is actively testing on animals, then I'm okay with supporting that brand, even if their parent company tests on animals. I think it's important for the parent company to see their cruelty-free brands are just as, if not more, successful as their animal testing counterparts rather than just boycotting all of the brands associated with that parent company.
To stay educated, I do my research. It takes more than just reading the label on product packaging, because there aren't strict guidelines on labeling a product "cruelty-free" like their are for labeling organic produce or non-GMO products. A brand can slap on the cruelty-free label if they didn't test the FINISHED product on animals... that means they could have tested the individual ingredients on animals, but as long as the finished product isn't, it can be considered cruelty free. Pretty lame, right?
Here are a few of my cruelty-free "bibles" when I'm doing my research. The ultimate one is the Leaping Bunny because they have the highest standards when it comes to companies registering with them to be considered TRULY cruelty-free. Since not all truly cruelty-free companies are registered with this company, it's still important to sniff around for those hidden gems.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but these are the main websites I go to.
With all this being said, I know for a fact that I have some non-cruelty-free cosmetics in my collection. For example, Revlon used to be against animal testing, but to expand their market, they decided to start selling their products in China... there go my favorite lip products! Same thing goes for Rimmel. I feel the need to point this out because these brands, and probably a few others, have been featured on my blog in past posts. As someone who is very passionate about ridding the make up industry of animal testing, I don't want to advertise or support brands that no longer hold up to my standards in regards to being cruelty-free. I don't have a huge make up collection, so it's not difficult to weed out these products.
In my future beauty posts, I will stay up-to-date on which brands remain cruelty-free and which have veered off the path (hopefully no more of my favorites will venture out to the Chinese market!) and I will post accordingly.
Keep those wittle fluff balls safe! They don't even need make up- they're cute enough without it!
xo Sam
Wonderful post...I like your blog.^^
ReplyDeleteMaybe follow each other on bloglovin?
Let me know follow you then back.
Lovely greets Nessa
Thank you so much! Your blog looks right up my alley. Followed :)
DeleteThank you so much for the follow.
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Lovely greets from germany ;-)