Everyday my news feed is plagued with seemingly endless articles on the latest horrific thing happening around the world or right here at home, and sometimes beyond writing Her Campus articles that disseminate this information further, I feel like I have no way of helping. One simple and effective way to help as a college student is to put your money to where your mouth is, and as someone who is strongly against the cruel and pointless testing of products on animals, I am always trying to avoid purchasing products that still test on animals. With the announcement that CoverGirl will become the largest makeup brand to go entirely cruelty-free, animal lovers everywhere have rejoiced. Cruelty-free is defined as the brands that do not test any of their products or ingredients on animals anywhere even where required by authorities nor do they use a third party to test on their behalf.
CoverGirl is in good company standing alongside brands such as Anastasia Beverly Hills, Burt’s Bees, Colourpop, Elf Cosmetics, Nyx Cosmetics and Too Faced, to name a few. A more extensive list can be found on EthicalElephant.com. Still, even with so much pressure to change many brands continue to test on animals. These brands include MAC, L’Oreal, Maybelline and Nars. For many the pressure to still test on animals comes from lack of reason not to, a desire to use new ingredients which often due to lack of other tests require animal testing and to expand to a larger market as China mandates that all cosmetics sold in their country having been tested on animals.
Animal testing has proven to be ineffective because shockingly animals are not humans and what’s a lethal dosage for a rabbit may not be a lethal dosage for a human and what blinds a mouse might not blind a human. According to Humane Society International’s website, “different species can respond differently from each other as well.” Also, animal tests can be “variable and difficult to interpret.” Perhaps most telling of the unimportance of animal testing is that multiple countries have banned animal testing for cosmetics, most notably 28 of the 29 European Union countries since 2009.
CoverGirl has earned the Leaping Bunny seal, the highest standard in cruelty-free cosmetics. According to Ukonwa Ojo, the chief marketing officer of Coty Consumer Beauty which is CoverGirl’s parent company, CoverGirl had “verified [their] internal standards and established protocols for [their] suppliers, underwent a rigorous audit of [their] supply chain and ingredients, and agreed to regular independent audits of the CoverGirl supply chain.” The PETA symbol is only for companies who swear to be cruelty free which means their only bond is their reputation and their claim to transparency.
CoverGirl made this decision because according to Ojo, “As a brand, we believe that ethical beauty choices should be accessible and affordable for all.” Excitingly, no one has to wait for CoverGirl’s cruelty-free products to hit the shelves because all products currently on sale are cruelty-free. The new Leaping Bunny logo will be on the packaging in the coming months.