So if you didn’t already know vegan doesn’t actually mean animal-friendly. Imagine my surprise when I realised that my skincare wasn’t actually cruelty-free and completely fell into the trap of skincare labels. Like with many other products, skincare can get super sketchy about their descriptions and use of words. After all, most people would assume that a vegan brand would also have to be animal-friendly, right? Well, unfortunately this is not the case.
In reality vegan skincare just means that the products don’t contain any animal-derived ingredients. Don’t get me wrong, the definition of vegan completely makes sense, but what gets frustrating is when skincare brands label themselves as animal friendly just because they are vegan. It’s simply not the same thing. The only brands that can call themselves animal lovers are those who are both vegan AND cruelty-free. The reasons being that ‘cruelty-free’ is a completely separate label to calling your product vegan; it means that the product was manufactured and sourced without any tests on animals (aka no animal testing is involved).
Sadly enough this also means that vegan companies who aren’t cruelty-free can test their ingredients and products on animals, and still get away with being called animal friendly. Their excuse is usually something along the lines of making sure their products are safe, but I mean come one so many vegan and cruelty-free brands have managed to make clean and safe products. Why can’t they?
Overall, more than 100 million animals suffer and die in the U.S. annually from animal testing, which is neither animal friendly nor sustainable… As vegan companies aren’t automatically animal friendly it becomes so much more important to read the fine-prints and look for ‘cruelty-free’ labels.
Since we wouldn’t want our own pets to go through such cruelty we HAVE to hold companies accountable for their actions against animals! We should treat ALL animals with equal justice.
Originally posted at voizreviews.com