The Cost Of Beauty - Truth behind animal testing

Most of you are probably unaware as to the true extent of animal testing in the cosmetics industry, like myself. I was ignorant, and until doing some research did not realise animal testing was still so prominent within the industry, like I did, you may think animal testing is a thing of the past.

Think again! Huge companies like Mac, L'Oreal, Estée Lauder, Johnson and Johnson just to name a couple still use animal testing for their products. You can find a complete list of companies that do use animal testing here; http://www.peta.org/living/beauty-and-personal-care/companies/default.aspx

What is Animal Testing?
Animal Testing is carried out by certain companies to test the safeness of products for humans. Animals like rabbits are often subject to extremely painful and often lethal tests, which include toxic substances being placed in the eyes of rabbits. The rabbits often scream out in pain and end up breaking their necks and backs in an effort to escape. Lethal Dosage (LD) test are carried out on the animals to test the dosage of the toxins that proves lethal, leading to the death of numerous animals. Often painful and slow deaths.
Other tests include force feeding rats chemicals, known for causing cancer, for 2 years to see if they get cancer, then either way they are all destroyed.

Why Animal Test?
Companies have a responsibility to ensure products are safe to consumers, however animal testing has been proved irrelevant. A test on a mouse, for example, will have different results than a test on a rat, therefore how can this be translated to the result on humans? DNA between species vary hugely and tests on different sexes of animals also affect test results, therefore results of the tests on animals do not reflect the result the product will have on humans. Products sold and manufactured in China are by law required to test on animals, a country which saw an increase in profit in the beauty industry of 18% last year, taking profits to £10 billion, making it a lucrative business with many cosmetics companies happily ditching their cruelty free logos to sell products in China.

There are better alternatives.
With modern technology their are more humane and effective tests that companies can use. For example, synthetic membranes grown by artificial means, which provide better results in relation to human reactions to cosmetics ingredients. With technology as advanced as it is in this day and age there is simply no reason or excuse for animal testing.

What can you do?
Whilst people are still purchasing products from companies who use these barbaric test, companies will continue to animal test. It may be that people are unaware, or don't like to think about it (ignorance is bliss!) but by boycotting companies who still use animal testing we can put a stop to this unjust cruelty. I will be boycotting these companies now, until their ethos on the matter changes!

You can also sign a petition and learn more about the 'Cruelty Free Campaign' here; http://www.crueltyfreeinternational.org/en/the-issue

And spread the word, people should be aware of what their hard earned money is funding when buying cosmetics!

Look out on products for the 'leaping bunny' logo below. This is issued by the CCIC (The Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics) to companies who comply with the cruelty free regulations.

It up to you who you purchase your products from but everyone should be aware of exactly what their money is funding.

I'm sorry but I have to add some horrid pics below to really highlight this plight!

For continued info see the following links;

http://www.crueltyfreeinternational.org/en/the-issue

http://www.peta.org/living/beauty-and-personal-care/companies/default.aspx