Imagine a pig, a cow, or a horse with a full face of makeup. Blush, mascara, eyeliner, lipstick, all the works. That’s what I imagined when I heard makeup companies tested on animals. But that’s not truly the case. 

Makeup comes in many different forms and can have many different purposes. Eyeshadow, concealer, bronzer, and powder. One thing that’s common among these products is that they are used on or near your face. Many parts of your face can be very sensitive. And to make sure makeup brands aren’t hurting people with their products they test them. But they don’t test them on humans, they test them on animals. 

Animal testing.

Every year more than 100 million animals die from animal testing. Every year innocent animals die from animal testing. 

So what is animal testing? Animal testing refers to procedures performed on live animals for research purposes. Animals such as dogs, cats, rabbits, and mice are experimented on, deliberately harmed, and usually killed after being used for the experiment. While animals are the test subjects of many different procedures one of the most common is for makeup and other cosmetic products.

 Makeup goes on your face and many times is put near or even in the eye. Your eye is a very sensitive body part and products not intended to be used near the eye can hurt you and sometimes can go as far as to cause blindness. To label their products as “safe” many companies test their products on animals. 

While this seems like a reasonable thing to do, the tests performed on these helpless, innocent animals are terrible and inhumane. 

The article, Which animals are used in cosmetics tests? Gives many examples of tests conducted on these animals. When reading this article I felt sick to my stomach about the experiences that these animals would go through. Pregnant rats and rabbits for example may be force-fed the ingredients that are used to make cosmetic items and then killed along with their unborn babies. This is to make sure that no health hazards come from the ingredients. While this seems horrible enough this is not all they go through.

According to the Humane Society, some more examples of animal tests are,

• Restrained rabbits getting chemicals rubbed into their skin or dripped into their eyes. The rabbits are also not given anything to soothe the pain making it even worse for them.
• Rats are forced to swallow large amounts of chemicals to find out how much is too much and what would cause death. 

And at the end of all of this testing, these animals are usually killed by suffocation, decapitation, neck-breaking, or by the effects of the tests. 

While some have arguments as to why animal testing should be continued, in my opinion, none of them are good enough to say that animals should go through the torture they should go through for it. And alternatives can be looked into, rather than continuing to test on animals. 

Many ingredients have a long history of being safe to use. Instead of using new ingredients and having to test them, companies could use ingredients known to be safe. And even if companies decide there is an ingredient out there that may be beneficial to the cosmetic or makeup industry, instead of testing it on animals, they could test them with non-animal tests. According to the humane society, “nearly 50 non-animal tests are already available, with many more in development. Compared to animal tests, these modern alternatives can closely mimic how humans respond to cosmetic ingredients and products; they are also often more efficient and cost-effective.” Knowing that these alternative tests are more efficient, cost-effective, and “better” makes knowing that companies still test on animals is devastating. As a society, we are also at a point where we have made many scientific and technological advancements making alternatives even easier to make, animal testing is outdated.

And while animal testing isn’t required to prove a product as safe in the United States, many popular companies still use this technique. Some of these companies are L’oreal, Estee Lauder, Mac, Lancome, Maybelline, Revlon, Clinique, chapstick, johnson & johnson, and even more. While looking through lists of companies that still test on animals I was shocked to see how many brands were on there that I buy from and use. 

So imagine your pet being tested on. Your dog or cat is being tested on, having chemicals put into its eyes and rubbed on its skin. Does that not make you uneasy, upset, or mad? 

Let’s put a stop to this. Educate yourself. Whether you watch documentaries (The one that made me look into this issue was Save Ralph, you can watch it by clicking the link.) or read articles. Look into it, research. Sign petitions and stop buying from brands that test on animals. And talk about it. 

For more information on how you can help, check out these links, 

https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/keep-animal-testing-out-your-shopping-cart

https://www.hsi.org/how-you-can-help/take-action/