On the 4th of October it’s World Animal Day, a day to show our lovely little friends some extra love. A pet gives you so much love and it’s always there for you, through thick and thin. Unfortunately not all animals have an equally good life, and there’s a lot of skin care and cosmetic companies that still test on animals. SELF is 100% vegan and cruelty-free as we are fully opposed to animal testing! World Animal Day is the perfect day to reflect on your purchases and these horrible acts against animals. But how can you be sure your favorite brand of skin care is animal test free and vegan?
The difference between animal test free and vegan
Animal test free and vegan are two different things. With vegan skin care it means no animals were harmed for the production and there were no animal ingredients used, for both the production and the product itself. Animal test free however means, as it says, there were no tests performed on animals.
When a product or brand is vegan, it’s often animal test free as no animals were harmed. But you can’t be a 100% sure, inform yourself! A product that is animal test free isn’t automatically vegan. It may not have been tested on animals, but it can still contain animal ingredients.
Check the labels
Personally I find the idea of knowing there are companies still testing on animal atrocious. Since the 11th of March 2013 there has been a ban on animal testing across Europe, so that’s one step in the right direction. But there’s still countries outside or Europe where there is no law against animal testing. China for example is one of the biggest culprits, all imported products are obligated to be tested and this means testing on animals as well. If your favorite product came from China, you can be sure of it that they’ve been tested on animals…
So how can you recognize animal test free and vegan skin care products? You can do that by looking at the labels, developed by international organisations such as Leaping Bunny, PETA, Choose Cruelty Free, The Vegan Society and The Vegetarien Society. A lot of brands claim not to test on animals, but unfortunately they’re just trying to fool the consumers. If you really want to be sure, take a look on their websites or packaging if you can find any of the following labels. Not just any brand can use these labels, so you can be sure!
Beware: if a product of brand does not have the label, it doesn’t mean they are testing on animals or use animal ingredients. So take a look at the list of ingredients.
Mind the ingredients
Inform yourself by taking a look on their list of ingredients. A lot of cosmetics and skin care products contain animal ingredients. Several of these ingredients can be synthetic as well as vegetal, so it can be difficult to trace its origin.
Some examples of possible animal ingredients:
Lanolin: wool fat obtained for shorn sheep.
Karmine acid: obtained from insects and provides products with a pink tint.
Collageen: found in fish.
Keratin: found in hoofs, bones and animal hairs.
Beeswax and honey.
Stearic acid: obtained from processed fat acids found in animals. The ingredient can be vegetal as well, high doses of which can be found in macadamia but also in our SELF products.
Glucosamine: made out of shellfish or chicken bone marrow.
Glycerine: obtained from animal fats or can be vegetal.
Animal versus vegetal
You can hear the difference: there are a lot of natural substitutes for animal ingredients! SELF contains natural stearic acid, high doses of which can be found in macadamia nuts. If you want to be sure your products are free of animal ingredients, you’re better of checking the information of your product or brand.
SELF for animals
How can you test products on those cute little faces, we’re absolutely opposed to animal testing! SELF is fully natural, vegan and animal test free. Our products contain nurturing ingredients suitable for humans, but for animals as well! We get a lot of pictures of customers using creams on their pets damaged noses. Great seeing SELF helping both man and animal! So now you can use these creams with a clean conscience!
