Many of you have a dog or a cat at home that you love more than anything in this world. There is probably nothing you would ever do to purposely harm him for your own benefit, right? Unbeknownst to thousands of people in the world, that is what the majority of beauty companies do everyday to ensure the safety of the products they are selling. They use rats, monkeys, guinea pigs, and rabbits to test the safety and the effects the beauty products will have on humans. Of course everyone wants to make sure that the shampoos, lotions, and mascaras they are lathering on their body are safe and won’t cause any strange rashes or defects, but the way that these companies are going about testing their products’ ingredients is inhumane.
Cosmetic testing is something that became prevalent in the United States during the twentieth century and has continued to this day. Chemicals are put onto the shaved skin of the animals to check for rashes, dripped into their eyes to see if it causes irritation, force-fed down their throats to test the lethal dose and if it causes birth defects. Many of these animals are then killed immediately after these experiments are conducted to see what affect the chemicals have on the animals’ organs. Although many of these companies are doing the “right” thing, in theory, by testing the safety of their products, there are plenty of other ways to ensure their products won’t cause harm to humans that do not inflict any harm on animals.
There have been over 5,000 ingredients that have been deemed safe for use in cosmetics that companies can choose from. The use of these ingredients would help eliminate animal testing for the new makeup products, but would still allow for endless chemical concoctions to create new makeup! If companies want to experiment with new ingredients, they can test the ingredients’ effects on humans using artificial tissue or test tubes; both of which are extremely accurate and cruelty-free. Because there are over 500 beauty brands worldwide that have been recognized as cruelty-free, it is possible for all cosmetic brands to follow in those companies’ footsteps and eventually become cruelty-free as well.
While we all wait for that day to come, below are a few popular beauty brands (both drugstore and high-end) that are known to be cruelty-free and pride themselves in that title!
1. Anastasia Beverly Hills
2. ELF Cosmetics
3. Hourglass Cosmetics
4. Lush
5. Milani Cosmetics
6. Nars
7. Sonia Kashuk
8. Tarte Cosmetics
9. Too Faced
10. Urban Decay
Although many people do not feel passionately about animal cruelty, it is always something that you should keep in the back of your mind when shopping for new beauty products. You can also check out any makeup comapny’s website and they should be pretty upfront about their involvement in cruelty-free makeup testing. There are also plenty of websites to check out to see if your makeup products are cruelty-free, such as http://www.peta.org or http://www.gocrueltyfree.org/consumer. Think about the impact you want to have on the inncoent animals’ lives next time you’re browsing the shelves at Target or Sephora. Happy shopping!