The Use Of Animals Testing In The Beauty World Has To Stop 🐰

Every year over 500,000 animals are harmed by the beauty industry through animal testing and other forms of torture.

5 min readMay 17, 2021

The ethical question is whether animal testing should be allowed in the beauty industry — the answer is hell no. Let’s break it down, it’s not likely that when you shampooed your hair this morning or put on your makeup you thought about how animals were affected by the making of your shampoo or lipstick. It’s more likely you only think of animals when you physically see them out and about or you actively consume animal products in your diet, such as dairy. People often don’t realize that many companies we use everyday test their products on animals which causes undoable damage. This generation needs to put an emphasis on being conscious consumers and buyers because, the way we spend our money impacts the ways companies delegate change.

When companies are not cruelty free the processes for animal testing is one that is torturous and sick. According to Lush Cosmetics, animals are blinded, poisoned and killed from going through rigorous testing for products. The sad thing is, in the cases the animal does survive they can never go back to living a normal life because there are many side effects that end up slowly and painfully killing them. This issue is not new, animals have been tested on for centuries, yet animal testing souly for the purpose of cosmetics is fairly recent and only began in the 1930s.

Since 2012, over 60 million animals have been harmed by animal testing and it takes consumer awareness to put on end to it because companies to have a choice of whether or not they should continue animal testing.

There are millions of beauty companies that claim they are cruelty-free — meaning they do not test on animals however companies can lie. There is no standard or legal definition of what can actually be labeled as cruelty-free. Until there are rules and regulations here are some ways you can detect whether or not a company is actually cruelty-free. According to Ethical Elephant, you have to find out if the company tests its finished product on animals, if they test their ingredients on animals, do they hire a different third company to test on animals for them and do they sell or manufacture their products in China. The last one is obvious because in China it’s mandatory for companies to test on animals.

A protest in the US against animal testing

Animal testing is an issue throughout numerous industries not just the beauty industry. Ethically, the vast majority of animal testing is wrong, however when it comes to debating the pros and cons of the issues there are fair arguments to be made. (In accordance to ProCon.org)

A pro is, animals substitute the use of human subjects in cases when ethical considerations prevents.
A con is, although animals and humans are similar in terms of DNA, for example chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA with humans — we are still complexly different. Paul Furlong (a professor of Clinical Neuroimaging at Aston University), states that “it’s very hard to create an animal model that even equates closely to what we’re trying to achieve in the human.”(NAVS)
A pro is, many of the animals that are used in testing usually have a short life spam so if they do end up with horrific side effects they’ll die quicker rather than human beings who have longer life cycles.
A con is, bottom line animal testing is cruel. Animals are force fed or are starved and water deprived on purpose, people who work in those fields will even inflict burns and other wounds on them to study treatments and skin remedies. The US Department of Agriculture reported in Jan. 2020 that research facilities used over 300,000 animals in activities involving pain in just one year.

In the case of Animal testing, whether it be for the cosmetic industry or any other industry the cons heavily out weigh the pros when it comes to harms and benefits for the animals. Animals truly don’t deserve to be put through so much harm all for essentially nothing. Now in recent times, there have been numerous technological advancements that test products and ingredients safely and more effectively than testing on animals. There’s Cell Culture where we can test for chemical absorption by skin, phytotoxicity, skin corrosion, and so much more.

Most recently there’s the Human Organs-on-Chips. The researchers at the Wyss Institute came up with a computer microchip that replicates the functions of our living organs from skin to kidneys. The Organs-on-Chips, also known as the Organ Chip is a perfect solution to ultimately eliminating animal testing.

In the equation of animal testing there are a couple of stake holders that are effected. The animals first and foremost since they’re the ones being harmed through product and ingredient testing. Us being the consumers, and the companies who test on animals like Mac and Estée Lauder. It’s crazy to know that we as consumers have the power to influence companies to change their way through protesting and boycotting their brands. The last stake holder would have to be China since it is mandatory that cosmetics get tested if they’re either sold in china or manufactured in china.