Animal testing, used extensively in the cosmetic industry, is a harsh reality of millions of small animals, and protest efforts have led to legislation banning the sale of such companies that engage in the practice.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an animal rights activist group, held a worldwide campaign after anger over animal testing statistics were released. Across the globe public protests were held, phone calls were made, and thousands of emails sent to legislatures.
In a huge victory, PETA successfully got the European Union (EU), Israel, and India to ban the sale of any cosmetics or cosmetics ingredients that have been tested on animals.
In the United States, the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), first signed into law in 1966, was the first federal law regulating the treatment of animals in research, teaching, testing, exhibition, transport, and by dealers. This law allows the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to highly regulate research.
Foundations for Biomedical Research said, “The [AWA] sets high standards of care for lab animals with regard to their housing, feeding, cleanliness, ventilation, and medical needs. It also requires the use of anesthesia or analgesic drugs for potentially painful procedures and during post-operative care. Most importantly, research institutions are required – by law – to establish an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) to oversee all work with animals.”
These efforts only scratch the surface, however, writing the rules. Enforcement is heavy in research industries, but falls short in others, like animal breeding or, in this instance, cosmetic testing.
Based on a 2024 report from ADA Cosmetic “approximately 78% of the top 50 beauty brands are still using animal testing for their product development.”
An example of this situation is the beauty brand L’Oréal. They don’t run testing on animals in the United States but do pay for deadly testing overseas reported by PETA.
The L’Oreal company has released statements about their ‘no tolerance’ on animal testing. They say, “L’Oréal does not test any of its products or any of its ingredients on animals and has been at the forefront of alternative methods for over 40 years.”
PETA has reported otherwise: “L’Oreal has been included on PETA’s list of companies that test on animals for many years because it refused to adopt a company-wide policy against tests on animals for both its ingredients and finished products, and because it sells cosmetics products in China that are required by law to be tested on animals by government agencies.”
The Humane Society of the United States
Rabbits getting ready to be tested on.
Imagine being trapped in a lab, subjected to many painful experiments, with no way of escaping, making it to safety, and surviving. This is the harsh reality for millions of animals that are used for testing. Many cosmetic beauty brands have funded money for experiment testing for their products that involved animals.
The Humane Society International gave a description of “more than 115 million animals worldwide are used in laboratories,” and within that, “more than 12 million animals are used each year, with France, Germany and the United Kingdom being the top three animal using countries.”
Animals such as “mice, fish, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, farm animals, birds, cats, dogs, mini-pigs, and non-human primates” are most commonly used to run testing on.
As the cosmetic industry must seek out a shift if they want to continue in the market, the issue of animal testing is still debated in other industries. The pharmaceutical industry, for example, continues testing new medicines on mice, rats, and rabbits before moving on to human trials.
To prevent the use of animals being used as test subjects we can stop buying from brands like
L’Oreal, Lancôme, MAC Cosmetics, and Victoria’s Secret reported by PETA. By consumers refusing to buy their products they won’t be able to fund laboratories to carry out experiments on animals with their products.
Instead we should look into alternative brands that don’t test on animals as PETA reported brands like Bath & Body Works, e.l.f., MILANI, and Wet n wild have never used animals to test their products on.
