Apr 5, 2013

The Cruelty Free Tag

I guess this is a long overdue post for someone who's only intention is to spread the word about cruelty free make up. So here it is; I'm answering the 8 questions of The Cruelty Free  Tag. 

Before I do that, let me just go into detail what I believe is a cruelty free company and which online resource I use to look for them.

Since March 8, the EU no longer allows for products tested on animals to be sold within the EU. How this is put in practice I have no idea and I am very sceptical, to be honest. 

Firstly, I ignore Peta altogether. As far as I'm concerned they are liars.
I want my product to be cruelty free through all stages of it's manufacture. None of the individual ingredient should be tested nor should be the final product. I feel companies should not comission third party to conduct animal testing. 
A lot of the companies make misleading claims to make it sounds like they do not test, when in fact they do. How to spot a lying company is explained in this guide at Uncaged.co.uk. 

The best list of cruelt-free make-up for central Europeans can be found at the Croatian site Prijatelji životinja. But do not worry, they have translated their WHITE LIST into English.
That is what I use when I go shopping. I also go by uncaged's guildeline that say that Hofer's own brand of cleaning products and cosmetics are cruelty-free.


I do not buy anything from the list of companies that still test on animals


The best way to ensure you are getting an ethical product is to look for natural cosmetics certificates. I find that the Vegan Society Certificate is the only one that meets my cruelty-free standards. 
However, please be careful - while a range may pride itself in being certified that does NOT necessarily mean that eve ry single product within the range is certified. If they bottle you are trying to buy has the certificate's logo on it, it's fine. If it doesn't have it, it means you have no guarantee you are buying a cruelty-free product even if the rest of the range might be.

I only fully trust three certificates; Vegan Society, Leaping Bunny and One Voice certificate. I also use BDIH and Natrue certified cosmetics.  You can learn more about natural cosmetic certificates and what their logos look like here.  


So what the heck do you even buy, you might ask. I'm including a list of some of the things I use here: 
1. Mineral and indie make-up companies
e.g Lily Lolo, Mineralissima, Bella Pierre,Alima Pure
American online minerals companies such as Fyrinnae, Darling Girl Cosmetics, Meow, Sugarpill

2. Slovene companies
Kimi d.o.o does stuff for Mercator's own cleaning products and Intespar too (but not the new ''Despar'' line!)
Afrodita
Ilirija (particulary Green Line)
Biotopic

3. Natural Certified products
Alverde (Natrue certificate)
Terra Naturi (Vegan Society certificate, BDIH)
Logona
Benecos
100 % Pure
Sante
Melvita
home cleaning line Sonett (Vegan Society)

4. Drugstore 
The only drugstore company I know of is that is cruelty free is Cosnova (Essence and Catrice), dm's own certified Alverde and Mueller's own brand Terra Naturi. And make-up from Hofer made by Perfumes And More.
 Within the price range there is also Barry M and Sleek.

(I do not buy the following drugstore brands because they test: Avon, S-he, Deborah, Bourjois, Revlon, Manhattan, Loreal, Maybelline, Misslyn, Miss Sporty, ArtDeco, BeYu:, Makeup Factory)

5. Department store
Isadora, Inglot, Nvey Eco, Illamasqua
Kryolan (more of a pro line not so much a department store)


QUESTIONS:
1.What is your favorite cruelty free brand?
My favorite cruelty free brand of all times is Fyrinnae. It's a well established independant company now ( such companies are affectionatley known as "indie"). They offer a wide array of eyeshadow with out of this world complexity, as well as blush, face powders, primers ... Not to mention they were the pioneers of the foiling medium that now everybody and their momma are copying, but Fyrinnae's Pixie Epoxy remains the cult product till this day.
On top of that, they NEVER conducted animal testing and all of their products are completely vegan.



2.What brand did you love until you found out it wasn't cruelty free?
Nyx Cosmetics - they do thrid party animal testing I didn't not know about and I sincerly believed they were cruelty free.
MAC - i'm sure you all got sucked into thinking they were an ethical company
BeYu  is a sister company of Art Deco who test on animals.
Balea, Drogerie Markt's (dm drugstore's) own skincare line is manufactured by Nivea. Nivea tests on animals.


3.What is a cruelty free drugstore brand you like?
Alverde is pretty awesome with it's price point and natural ingredient. 

4.Have you found a nail polish that is cruelty free?
To my knowledge as of present (March 2013) I consider Essence, Catrice and Zoya nail polishes cruelty free. I don't like using nail poilsh so this isn't something I buy or use more than a few times per year.

5.Have you found a perfume that is cruelty free?
I have no sense of smell so I never buy perfumes.

6.Why did you want to become a user of cruelty free products and how did you find out about cruelty free options?
 I will never understand why people do not care about animals being hurt. I think it's because they do not realize a vast amount of product is tested on cats, dogs and not necessarily just lab animals. It's not just rodents, guys, IT IS NOT JUST RODENTS. This article from uncaged.co.uk explains animal testing better than I ever could.
I was always against animal cruelty, very strongly so. I was only misinformed about the regulation. I thought that the European Union implemented a ban on all animal testing, therefore it was safe to buy anything sold in Europe. That was completely false.  I also followed PETA's guide, which is full of bullshit. I bought so many products tested on animals, because Peta's listed them as cruetly free when they absolutely weren't.

I was also unaware of how this China business works and I do now.



7. Do you eat meat?
After seeing Earthlings I have reduced my meat intake.
 I am not a vegan, however; I am trying to be more animal friendly with my eating choices. It's rarely easy when the budget is tight like mine and don't assume that I could be investing in vegan grocery if I didn't spend so much money on make-up. Its a false assumption I go out spending all my money on cosmetics. I don't.

At the momement I have successfully eliminated eggs out of my diet, I am not buying sea food as a regular thing, even though it's my favorite, and I have my animal protein source intake down to one serving of cca 100 g per week.

Unfortunately, I am unable to cut down on cottage cheese and low-carb plain probiotic yogurt. These two are a staple to my diet and no amount of soy milk has thus far converted me to completely vegan alternatives.



8.What is your favorite fruit and/or veggie?
Any berry and broccoli.
I love practically all fruit and veggie avaible in supermarkets in Slovenia.

5 Comments:

Unknown said...

ps. Alverde is not on AF lis tnor on Unchain list... I used their products and now that sucks.

Unknown said...

ps. Alverde is not on AF lis tnor on Unchain list... I used their products and now that sucks.

Unknown said...

ok double comment saved instead of the first one, which was:
I stumbled upon ur blog and just wanted to say natrue label doesnt assure cruelty free, you can read it in their own statement http://www.natrue.org/fileadmin/natrue/images/03_about_natrue/position_papers/Animal_testing_statement_SF_ENG._version_9.pdf
Im from croatia, so thanx for Animal Friends' compliments! :)

Gone2RehabBRB said...

Thank you, Karmen, for bringing this to my attentionand taking interest in the subject of this blog. This is an old post that needs to be updated.
Animal Friends are a wonder bunch :)

I, too, will need to purge some Alverde things.

Unknown said...

Helou, I checked on the Balea facebook site about testing or not on animals and both of their answers were that they don't test, so now I am a little bit confused? I am using bunch of their products so that would be really sad for me.
Best regards, Johana

Julia Emig Finde alle Produkte von balea super habe nur mal eine Frage habe gelesen das balea ohne Tierversuche ist stimmt das? Weil das würde mich echt freuen
Find all products from balea super got just one question I have read the balea without animal testing is that right? Because that would really be delightedAutomatically Translated
Unlike · Reply · 1 · January 2 at 10:55pm
Balea
Balea Liebe Julia, kein Balea Produkt wird an Tieren getestet. Dies trifft sowohl für die Produkte, als auch für deren Entwicklung und die eingesetzten Rohstoffe zu. Unabhängige Institute prüfen die Verträglichkeit. Liebe Grüße dein Balea-Team
Dear Julia, no balea product is tested on animals. This is true both for the products, as well as for their development and the raw materials used to. Independent institutions shall check the compatibility. Love greetings your balea-team

 
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