There’s no woman on earth who doesn’t like to look beautiful. Every woman uses some or the other cosmetics. Some like to apply full face of cosmetics and some apply only the bare minimum cosmetics to look presentable. But we all must know that there are few big and popular cosmetic brands, which test their products on the animals. Brands like, MAC, Urban Decay, Maybelline, L’Oreal, Revlon, Estée Lauder, Nars, Lancôme and so on test their products on the animals.
Facts about animal testing
Millions of animals die every year because of animal testing. The big brands earn a good deal of money and they invest the lion share of their profit in creating a new formulation and testing them on innocent animals. Monkeys, rabbits, Guinea pigs and rats are widely used by the brands to test their cosmetics. These animals die each year due to the wrong product formulation, like, skin irritation, eye sight, etc.
About 100 million animals are burned, abused or poisoned in the USA every year at the cosmetic testing labs. Europe being the world’s biggest cosmetic market conduct lots of animal testing of the products before launching them in the market for humans. Australia, India, New Zealand, Israel, Mexico, South Korea, Switzerland and many other countries banned animal testing of the cosmetics, skin care and hair care products as this increases death of animals in leaps and bounce.
Death stats of animals due to animal testing
Recently, a poll was conducted by PEW research centre where they found that almost 52% of the American adults are supporting animal testing. Another huge chunk of Americans feel that animal testing for the clinical trials of the medicines/vaccines are still okay to conduct as in many cases human genes are quite close to few spices of animals. But for the cosmetic industry it’s a bad call. Because cosmetics are meant to be a personal choice. People still have a choice to stop using such brands which conduct animal testing, but those innocent animals in the labs don’t have a choice for their participation.
Animal Welfare ACT (AWA) says that, 99% of the animals used in the laboratories for testing are not part of the animal protection laws. Many big cosmetic brands hide the number of animal deaths from the customers to show the power of their products formulation. As per a report in 2015, only 3% of the animals survive from the harsh testing process. Rest of the 97% dies during this process and they don’t even get a proper and respectable funeral too.
List of international vegan and cruelty-free cosmetic brands
- E.L.F Cosmetics
- The Body Shop
- Wet and Wild
- Bare Minerals
- Rare Beauty
- Ilia Beauty
- Hourglass
- Lawless (cruelty-free but not 100% vegan)
- R.E.M Beauty
- Flower Beauty
List of Indian (or available in India) vegan and cruelty-free cosmetic brands
- Daughter Earth
- Plum Goodness
- Mama Earth
- Disguise Cosmetics
- Earth Rhythm
- FAE Beauty
- E.L.F Beauty
- Kiro Beauty
- Just Herbs
- Nykaa Naturals
Conclusion
Animals are not for our use. They suffer a lot during the testing procedure. Apart than shouting at the top of their lungs is the only choice left for them. Humans evolved so much and we take help from science and technology every now and then to make our lives a bit easier comparatively. Then why do we still love using brands which are tested on animals. I understand that, women love using cosmetics to enhance their beauty or to emphasise on particular portion of their face to highlight. But it can be achieved by using vegan and cruelty-free beauty products. You don’t need to use animal tested products. Metaphorically speaking, would you really like to have the blood spots of the dead animals on your face to enhance your beauty? I guess, the answer is a big NO. That’s why since 2020, I stopped using animal tested cosmetic brands. I love using vegan and cruelty-free cosmetics and life has been really amazing since then.