Do you prefer organic quality? By prioritizing the seasonality of products? Are you striving for zero waste as much as possible? How about taking a look at your makeup bag? Beauty products also deserve our full attention for the enlightened and responsible consumers that we are. So why consume vegan cosmetics?
Animals in the make-up?
It is perhaps surprising, although information is now more and more accessible on the subject, but products of animal origin can indeed. End up in our shampoo or our gloss! So, whether you are vegan or not, can you consider showering with beef fat for example, as “normal”?
It should be understood that the livestock industry generates a lot of waste, animal carcasses, tendons, skins. These by-products are then upgraded and therefore resold to other industries which will transform them into dog food, glue for textiles, in soil fertilizers or in Cosmetics.
How to find these animal products in our bathroom?
Well, we encourage you, as always, to read the labels carefully. You might find there:
- Of beeswax (classical, including balms and massage candles).
- Of carmine, also called “cochineal red”, “natural red 4”, “carminic acid”. It is in fact of cochineals crushed to obtain a pretty red color which one finds in the nail polishes, the lipsticks and glosses, the eyeshadows.
- Made from fish scales, it gives cosmetics a pretty iridescent color.
- But also lanolin (from sheep’s wool).
- Or snail slime.
A quick glance, finally, at your brushes and brushes are the hairs synthetic or from goats or wild boars?
- Vegan cosmetics: labels to enlighten us
- Vegan labeled cosmetics
- Vegan cosmetics
Today it is possible to rely on vegan labels. Whether French or international, they come to reassure consumers about the composition of the product but also about its manufacturing process. Thus, the label certifies that shampoo, eye shadow, mascara, etc. has not been tested on laboratory animals. Some go so far as to refuse labeling to brands that export to China (since animal testing is a prerequisite for the Chinese market).
Among the labels, the most famous is certainly the little pink “cruelty free” rabbit from PETA . It announces a product free of any substance of animal origin and not tested on animals.
More recently, in France, the first vegan label appeared: EVE (European Vegan Expertise) . This recognizes the products as being vegan (textiles, food, but also cosmetics). EVE also wants to go even further in the field of ethics, by promoting the environment and human health. Thus, certain so-called “controversial” substances are also part of the “black list” of the specifications (especially additives).
A cruelty-free makeup bag
Here you have all the keys to an ethical and animal-friendly bathroom! While reading labels can be tedious, even perilous, it is always possible to trust the labels involved. And why not also strive for the rawest products possible?
Vegan cosmetics: use raw products like clay, salts, coconut oil
So, clay for a dry shampoo, to choose according to our needs, coconut oil to remove make-up (nothing can resist it, not even waterproof), Aloevera gel to hydrate our skin.
