What (or who) is Sacrificed for Our Skincare…

Recently, I’ve spent a lot of time volunteering. One of the places I volunteered at regularly was The Animal Rescue League. Hands down, I became an all time animal lover. Every single animal there was so lovable, all with their own reasons of being in the shelter. A lot of them were given up by families, while others had to deal with a lot more ordeals before being saved by the shelter. All in all, it made me see first-hand that animals feel just as much pain, happiness, fear, or any emotion as a human.

So if you haven’t already guessed from the title and my little intro… thingy… today’s blog post is going to be about animal cruelty in skincare. It’ll include:

How and why do cosmetic companies test on animals?
Companies that test on animals
Companies that are Animal Cruelty free
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How and Why Do Cosmetic Companies Test On Animals?

It’s important to remember that our products, as great as they seem, come from businesses and a lot of business’ main objective is to gain profits.

Because… that’s the point… of a business.

When it comes to products that humans can use, it brings up a large risk factor for a business- whether it’s a pharmaceutical, makeup, skincare, or other company. If there’s a risk involved, making sure those products work without side effects generally save many companies from different legal cases against them. Not only that, testing newly developed drugs on animals (especially mice, who have very similar DNA sequences as humans) allows for safer and more developed medications for humans.

Because of this, a lot of animal testing is probably not ever going to be banned anytime soon.

But to do this, many companies rely on testing their products on animals, which isn’t just drawing eyebrows on a bunny; it’s a lot worse.

According to The Humane Society of the United States, cosmetic companies rely on extremely cruel processes involving:

“Skin and eye irritation tests where chemicals are rubbed onto the shaved skin or dripped into the eyes of restrained rabbits, without any pain relief.
Tests that deliver doses of chemical substances to mice through repeated force-feeding. These tests last weeks or months so researchers can look for signs of general illness or specific health hazards such as cancer or birth defects.
Widely condemned “lethal dose” tests, in which rats are forced to swallow large amounts of chemicals to determine the dose that causes death.

Not only that, none of these animals are given the slightest liberty of pain killers. Their deaths are often as horrendous as the testing– with asphyxiation, neck-breaking, and/or decapitation. These animals are not protected by the Animal Welfare Act.

In the end, are these tests even effective?

A lot of my sources indicate that even though some animals are closely related to humans, even the slightest genome difference can cause a completely different reaction for the animals than it would for humans.

This makes sense, since even within the human population the slightest genetic difference causes different reactions to different products. How can we expect different animals to have the similar reactions to humans ALL the time?

The FDA doesn’t require animal testing in the cosmetic industry but they allow– and even encourage– proper testing to various levels. While many countries like Israel, India, and the UK have banned animal testing, hundreds of companies in the US continue to utilize animal testing for product development.

Companies That Test On Animals

The best way we can help these animals is to be more aware of which products we are buying and which brands we are supporting. Some of these brands have really great products and are really popular. Though on their websites, they all deny testing on animals, but have been found to pay third parties to do testing for them (usually internationally).