Attention all animal lovers! Fortunately, throughout the past decade, our options for cruelty-free makeup brands have grown drastically by educating the public about animal-testing and donating to organizations that support cruelty-free products. When I first started wearing makeup, I never really paid attention to which products were cruelty-free or offered vegan options, mostly because I was too worried about having the coolest products. I did not realize how big this industry really was and began to research about the disgusting secrets of the beauty industry.
Hundreds of thousands of animals such as rabbits, hamsters, rats, and mice suffer by having chemicals forced down their throats and dripped into their eyes or onto their skin just for cosmetics every year around the world. Typically, companies perform studies on these animals where they put them in unhealthy conditions by force-feeding them for weeks or months to look for signs of general illness or health hazards that could possibly cause cancer or birth defects. Sometimes, they perform “lethal-dose” tests, where they swallow large amounts of chemicals and products to determine the specific dose that causes death. These tests leave animals in grueling pain causing them to go blind, have internal bleeding, swollen eyes, or even death. Eventually, animals are killed through asphyxiation, decapitation, or neck-breaking.
According to the Humane Society, it is not required to perform animal testing, so you may ask, why do companies still test on animals? Most companies are discovering new ingredients that do not include any safety information, simply because they are new! They offer non-animal test methods for these ingredients; however, they are not available everywhere and have not been seen as a priority until recently. If companies stuck to using the thousands of existing cosmetic ingredients available, they would never have to test on animals, which is exactly what cruelty-free companies do.
Today, the Humane Society has developed the #BeCrueltyFree campaign, which is working to change laws to ban animal testing and educating consumers by raising awareness of animal testing.
Below are several different companies that are cruelty-free, meaning that they do not test their products on animals, do not test ingredients on animals, and do not sell their products in-stores in mainland China where post or pre-market animal testing may be required by law. Although these brands have been verified as cruelty-free, some consumers choose not to buy from some of these brands because they are owned by a parent company that does test on animals and they feel that their purchases may be indirectly supporting animal testing.
- Anastasia Beverly Hills—vegan options!
- Aromi—vegan!
- Aveda*
- BareMinerals*
- BH Cosmetics—vegan options!
- Bliss
- Covergirl*
- Curology—vegan!
- Dermablend
- Dermalogica*
- Eco Tools—vegan!
- Elf Cosmetics—vegan!
- Flower Beauty—vegan options!
- Glossier—vegan options!
- Jeffree Star Cosmetics—vegan!
- Kylie Cosmetics—vegan options! *
- Lush
- Milk Makeup—vegan!
- Nyx Cosmetics*
- Orly
- Pureology—vegan! *
- SW Basics
- The Body Shop
- Too Faced*
- Ulta
- Urban Decay*
- Vapour Organic Beauty
- 100% Pure—vegan options!
*owned by a parent company that participates in animal testing