The Price of Beauty (is it worth it?)
Do you have a favorite lipstick? A go-to mascara? Maybe a ride-or-die foundation that gets your skin just looking like silk? What if I told you that your ride-or-die product was actually causing death? Companies started testing our cosmetics on animals in the 1940s and I think it's about time we talk about it here in America.
There is no law in the United States of America that requires product testing on animals. There is no law in the United States of America that requires product testing on animals. There is no law in the United States of America that requires product testing on animals. Now, do you know why America continues to test on animals? They test on animals so they have the data to back them up in the occasion that someone gets injured using their product. They force animals to suffer so that they don't get sued. The FDA regulates cosmetics, however, they do not approve them. Now if you're like me, you're probably thinking well what's the difference? What does that even mean? It means that the FDA regulates the sales and commercialization of these products, but they don't give a rats ass what's in them. So basically you can put lead in your eyeliner and the government will say "Hey, let's put Victoria's Secret models in the commercial to get sales up." So once again, the government is making money by fucking us all in the ass. The cherry on top is that in 2017 they introduced legislation that would ban animal testing. Nothing ever came from it. But wait... Theres sprinkles on that cherry. The link attached to "FDA" above takes you to the FDAs 'artical' on cruelty-free. This is where the insult our intelligence by basically saying that any brand can be cruelty-free because there are no legal definitions of that term... Cruelty-free sounds pretty self explanatory to me... Not to mention the fact that this is the branch of the government that has the power to control whether or not animal testing is allowed, so at any point they could say stop and they haven't done that. yet they have the audacity to subject brands that are trying to do good by the other species that inhabit this planet to ridicule. Now maybe there are brands that just claim to be, but not one of the 4 dinky paragraphs written by some government minion provides evidence of this claim. Show me the evidence, because I've been researching, and it definitely seems like youre the bad guy here.
According to PETA "More than 100 million animals suffer and die in the U.S. every year in cruel chemical, drug, food, and cosmetic tests" Some of the animals that endure these tests include; mice, rats, frogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, monkeys, fish, birds, dogs and cats. If you have a dog at home that you love and spoil and would do anything for, your fur baby got lucky. There is a dog of the same breed with same sweet heart suffering in a laboratory right now. Is midnight black eyeliner worth that? One thing to keep in mind is that labels can be deceiving. A product can be vegan, but not cruelty free, that means that the product has no animal products in it but they still test it on animals...
China. China, China, China. I have so many questions. In 2014 China ended its mandatory animal testing for products produces in China. That sounds decent, right? Well, it is legally required for any products being imported to China to be tested on animals before humans are allowed to use them. So Let's take, for example, the new Maybelline (American company-based out of New York) Sky High mascara dominating commercial breaks right now. Maybelline is NOT a cruelty-free brand, and they sell in China. So that Skyscraper mascara that looks so good on the model with her smokey eye shadow and hair blowing in the wind, that same mascara has been rubbed into the eyes of hundreds of bunnies in multiple countries. Let's think about that. Is that worth it? Your lashes aren't going to look like hers. Her lashes don't look like that even with the mascara. Other countries have banned "the newly animal-tested products." There's a loophole though, the old stuff is completely fine, you can still test all that on animals.
Dr. John H. Draize developed the Draize test in 1944, he was a toxolgist studying hyperthyroidism at the time. He got wind that people were going blind due to coal tar in their mascara. So this piece of shit grabbed an albino bunny and rubbed that right in it's little eye. The Driaze test is done on skin and eyes. For the skin test they shave the animal and apply a certain amount of a questionable substance directly to the skin. The two signs they look for are edema (water retention) and erythema (reddening of the skin). With the eye test they have more to look for, which makes sense because nothing should be going in your eye. There's things like swelling and reddness, things like discharge and cloudiness. This eye test can cause ulcerations, hemorrhaging and blindness, more often than not the test leaves the animals eyes ulcerated and bleeding. Think about how it feels when you get an eyelash in your eye, or god forbid soap. They are given nothing for pain, they feel every second of this. If the animals get fucked up so bad that it is irreversible then they get euthanized. If they don't or the damage is reversible then the animal will be used in other experiments and tests. The FDA supports this test.
How effective is animal testing? After all we are not monkeys, or bunnies or puppies, and they are not humans. According to Forbes animal testing is only accurate 40-60% of the time. So theres like a 50% chance that the test will mean anything and a 100% chance the animal will suffer the entire time. Cruelty-Free International goes into more detail about specific drugs the have been tested and failed due to the inaccuracy of animal testing. PETA states that less then half to the studies tested on animals get approved or published because of how faulty they are.Over the years many different cruelty-free testing methods have popped up and have proven to be 80% effective. These test have been proven to be more accurate, informational, cheaper and they take less time. A single animal test can last up to 3-5 years use around 800 animals and cost tax payers hundreds of thousand of dollars. Humane Society International breaks down the cost differences between them.What do they use for testing? Non-animal testing includes methods such as In Vitro, using human tissue samples and cell cultures. Using computer models is another testing alternative, this method however is more attached to medical breakthroughs than cosmetic testing. The last alternative I found was real life human volunteers. These solutions just make sense to me, if the product is for humans why are we testing it on anything else?
I always thought brands like Wet N Wild, or Elf, or anything like that that is less known then the big 4 (L'oreal, Maybelline, Covergirl and Revlon) that they were going to be harmful and wreck my skin or cause some kind of rash or something. Thats what I was taught... That's so not true. It's the big companies that are the truly evil ones. While those smaller brands may not be as big and as popular they work just the same. Covergirl is a brand that I need to look into a little bit more, they claim to be cruely-free and they don't sell in china, but I can't say that I personally trust them yet.
How can you buy cruelty-free?
PETA has a page dedicated to swapping to cruelty-free brands and provides links to the companies.
NAVS (National Ant-vivasection Society) has an app to guide you in the direction of trustworthy brands. I have since downloaded it, it provides cruelty-free solutions for animal care, cosmetics,household products, and personal care. It is also free.
https://www.navs.org/who-we-are/about-navs/#.YEMXcrBKi01
There are blogs upon blog upon blogs about it.
https://logicalharmony.net/tips-to-go-cruelty-free/
https://blog.feedspot.com/cruelty_free_makeup_blogs/
Research your makeup, if they sell in china, ditch them! There are numerous YouTubers that take about this stuff as well, just type in cruelty-free and you'll be set. It's 2021 we fight for whats right, we fight for those who are treated unfairly, we spread love and equality. These little babies don't need to go through this anymore.
Thank you for reading, I always enjoy writing blogs like these even when the truth hurts. Remember to be mindful next time you need make-up nail polish or hair products. Give your fur baby love for me if you have one and let's be better because it's time.
-Courtney.
