Cruelty Free Beauty
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room.
If you know me, you know cruelty free beauty is something I am EXTREMELY passionate about. I was trying to think back to when this passion started, and I have to give credit to Legally Blonde 2. You know, the one where the confident and outgoing, Elle Woods, finds out her dog, Bruiser’s, mother is trapped in an animal testing facility. That one! After watching that movie at the ripe age of 7, I had it in the back of my mind when it came to buying products. Now, I will admit I haven’t always been the best at staying true to my 7 year old self. But, when I moved to Edmonton back in 2015, I made the decision to start converting all of my beauty products to cruelty free.
Everyone has their own reasons for going cruelty free. Not everyone will agree with my reasoning or this post in general. But, if you’ve found your way to this page, you are most likely trying to take the plunge or you already are in the deep end and need more inspo! Either way, I’m happy you’re here.
IT’S UNNECESSARY
To be quite frank, there are viable alternatives available. Take ‘The Body Shop’ for example. They develop products that use natural ingredients -like bananas, basil nut oil, honey, etc.- with a long history of safe human usage. There are other, more advance scientific and ethical methods of testing products for humans (Lone Star College has an excellent post here)
Lush cosmetics has also been a leader against animal testing. They test all of their products in house (on themselves) and send out batches for human volunteers. Just like The Body Shop, Lush has found many ways to keep creating amazing products by using ingredients that they know react well to the human body. (To read more on Lush’s Human Testing, click here)
ANIMAL RIGHTS
Animals and people both feel, think, behave, and experience pain, and we both have a basic moral right to be treated with respect. I don’t know about you, but using animals as tools in scientific experiments without having a choice, seems like a violation of rights. These experiments are often painful and can cause permanent damage or death. Some may argue that testing on animals benefit human’s, but you have to put yourself in the shoes of our furry friends and imagine how you’d feel if your basic rights have been taken away. They cannot vocalize their choices like us humans, and they don’t willingly sacrifice themselves for these experiments.
On another note, I want to end the stigma around which animals are being used for animal testing. When I chat with my peers about what kind of animals they think are being used, you get the typical “rats, mice, hamsters, bunnies”. But there are more than you think. Depending on where you are in the world, there can be difference species, but the most common are dogs, cats, mice, fish, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, farm animals, birds, mini-pigs, and monkeys/chimpanzees. Wow. I have had conversations with people who are outraged when they hear about animal abuse and neglect, but it seems like they are only up in arms when it comes to typical household pets, like cats and dogs. My question is, what is a ‘pet’ to you? To some, it might be mice, cows, pigs or birds. How would you feel about someone coming into your home and taking your pet for animal testing? You know it’s morally wrong when it hits home, so why not have compassion towards all animals?
PAINFUL
*just a pre warning that this section explains some of the ways animals are harmed in animal testing. If you’re sensitive to this topic, please read with caution*
Animals feel pain in many of the same ways that humans do. For example, they also scream when they feel pain. Two of the most common toxicity tests are the Draize test and the LD50 test. Both tests cause a significant amount of intense pain and suffering.
In the Draize test, the substance or product being tested is placed in the eyes of an animal and then monitored for damage to the cornea and other tissues in and near the eye. As you can probably guess, this test causes blindness, scarring and usually, death to the animal. This test has been accused of being totally needless and unreliable.
The LD50 test is used to test the dosage of a substance that is necessary to cause death in fifty percent of the animal subjects within a certain amount of time. Like, what? The animals are hooked up to tubes that pump copious amounts of the test product into their stomach until it causes death. Usually it takes days, even weeks, for the animal to die and since death is the endpoint, they aren’t put out of their misery. Basically they suffer from vomiting, diarrhea, paralysis, convulsion, and internal bleeding.
Other tests they perform are Skin Sensitization Testing, Carcinogenicity Testing, Reproductive and Developmental Toxicity Testing, and more. You can read about the other tests here.
In conclusion, all species are unique and tend to react differently to different diseases, ailments, and chemicals. There’s little reason to believe that just because a rat or bunny doesn’t respond to a certain chemical, a human being won’t. Animal testing does not eliminate the need to understand how certain products and chemicals affect humans. Animal testing is a crime against animal rights and it is more cruel than helpful. I have tons of product companies that don’t test on animals and work perfectly fine -even better than those that do use animal testing. Feel free to send me a message on my socials if you have any questions.