As you buy makeup, nail polish, and other supplies from drug stores, think about where your money is going as you pay for these products. Unfortunately, many brands that are sold in these stores test their products on animals. Here are the big name brands who test on animals, so you can be aware while buying products and hopefully only buy cruelty-free products in the future.
A few huge corporations that test on animals are L’Oreal, Estee Lauder, Procter and Gamble, Clorox, Johnson & Johnson, and Colgate-Palmolive. Unfortunately, most of these big names are making little effort to change their animal testing policies. Fortunately, Colgate-Palmolive said to gradually change their policies by reducing the number of animals used for testing. Although Estee Lauder and Colgate-Palmolive are not cruelty-free, they own brands that choose to be cruelty-free including Too Faced, Becca, and Tom’s of Maine.
According to Humane Society, companies still use animal testing to evalute the safety of these new ingredients. This testing is abusive and unneeded because companies can create products by using the thousands of ingredients already tested and proven to be safe. Additionally, modern technology and human cell-based tests that are less expensive, more effective, and cheaper have replaced tests on animals.
Animal testing is not accurate because they respond differently then humans when exposed to the same chemicals. The inaccuracy leads consumer safety to not be guaranteed therefore expressing the lack of the need to perform tests on animals.
The testing the companies perform on animals include skin and eye irritation tests, force-feeding, and lethal dose. With the skin and eye irritation tests, the people put chemicals onto the shaved skin or eyes on rabbits, without any pain relievers. Secondly, force-feeding entails forcing mice to swallow chemical substances for weeks to months at a time to look for signs of illness. Lastly, the lethal dose method of testing requires rats consuming big amounts of chemicals to see if the product causes them to die. At the end of a portion of tests, the animals are put to death by asphyxiation, breaking the neck, or decapitation.
Although there are many other methods for testing products, China still requires all cosmetic products to be tested on animals. On the other hand, the US does not require these laws. Furthermore, the European Union, India, Israel, Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland passed laws banning testing cosmetics on animals. Although China enforces laws that promote animal testing, many other countries are on the right track of preventing animal abuse issues in the future.
To access a list of cruelty-free brands visit:
To access a list of most of the brands that test on animals (some do not claim to test on animals) visit:
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