Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Hi,

I've been looking for some decent skincare for ages and would like something mid to high range as my M&S moisturiser isn't cutting it anymore. I looked to the bible of all things vegan (ahem, this forum) and was so excited to see that Origins is considered animal-friendly by a lot of people on here. I posted about my joy at hearing this as I thought Estée Lauder were a bunch of wrong-uns, but Amy kindly posted a statement from them, a portion of which said "We do not conduct animal testing on our products or ingredients, nor ask others to test on our behalf, except when required by law." I immediately phoned my vegan little sister to tell her, but she brought me back down to earth with a bump saying, "hmmm, that sounds like a get out of hell free card to me", and pointed out that neither Naturewatch nor BUAV endorse Estée Lauder or it's companies. The only list that appears to endorse them is Peta's. This is also the case with many other companies such as Avon and Revlon.

I'm just wondering why there are so many discrepancies? Is it to do with the "fixed cut off date" and "five year rolling rule" policies, and how acceptable the lack of these things are to the various groups? Or the "only when required by law" caveat?

Anyway, to get to the root of my question — which list do most of you guys follow, and which is the list that I can trust?

Thanks for any help or advice guys!

I don't trust any of the lists. If a company doesn't provide a clear statement of their own, I avoid them.

It gets trickier if you want to consider parent companies. For example, I think Neutrogena doesn't test, but J&J, their parent does.

For the UK, this list is pretty comprehensive http://nottested.co.uk/Toiletries.html

It lists all parent companies and is colour coded and stuff, so it's really easy to follow.

But, when I want stuff that I can be completely sure is 100% cruelty free and as ethical as possible for all involved, I hit up Lush. They have some pretty great moisturisers.

The problem with things like the PETA list is that it only lists companies that do and do not test on animals with no regards to whether or not they actually use animal products. I use the lists as a loose guide but check for myself and if it seems sketchy, I email the company and judge for myself. I think that's probably the best that you can do.

Thanks so much for all the advice. I think you're all right that if your gut feeling tells you there's something iffy about a company then there probably is.

Cheers for the link to "Not Tested" too — it seems to have compiled everything I was concerned about in a nice, easy to follow way and I'll be sending a link to my little sister!

It's just horrifying and perplexing that we should even need to worry about these issues in 2012, if people only knew what went on, sigh... Anyway, thank you again for all the advice, will have a look on Not Tested now!