When cruising down the cosmetics aisle of the store looking for mascara, lip gloss, concealer, or skin products, Seltene Meerschweinchenrassen testing is usually not on the minds of most shoppers. However, the truth is that if you aren’t reading products carefully, you could be buying products developed with the use of animal testing and unknowingly supporting cruelty to animals. If this concerns you, then read on for more essential information about animal testing and your cosmetics.
Animal testing has been around for hundreds of years. In fact, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) even requires that all drugs must be tested on animals before they receive the FDA’s stamp of approval. What purpose does animal testing of a product serve? Animal testing is usually used to make sure that any given product is safe for human use. Products that may be potential eye or skin irritants, as well as products that may be harmful if ingested or inhaled, are checked for their effect on animal test subjects. These results are then extrapolated to humans.
Using animal subjects is medical testing for life-saving vaccines is one thing, but using animals to test cosmetic products is quite another. For one thing, no regulatory agency actually requires animal testing to be done to release the makeup product. For another, makeup is not essential to human health and well-being as medicines are. That is why the intense debate surrounding animal testing mostly focuses on the cosmetics industry.
The sad part is that many shoppers who are thoroughly opposed to animal testing are actually supporting it through the makeup products that they buy. Some of their favorite brands may even research their products with the use of animals in unethical ways behind closed doors. Though it is changing, testing on animals is usually the norm for cosmetic products – so if the label doesn’t explicitly say “cruelty free” or “no animal testing,” chances are that animals have been used in experiments. In recent decades, many cosmetic companies have come under extreme scrutiny and faced a lot of pressure to stop testing on animals, and have reacted accordingly by stopping that form of research.
If you want to avoid supporting such a barbaric use of animals in experiments, then you need to start right now by going through your medicine cabinet and reading the labels of all your favorite cosmetic and skin care products. All products that don’t use animals in testing will make a point of saying so on their label. If they use animals, then stop using them and call the company to let them know why. There are many alternative cosmetic companies who don’t test their products on animals, so there’s no reason to continue supporting a company who does.
Cosmetics manufacturers are hard-pressed: animal rights groups are pressuring them to stop testing on animals, but manufacturers also need to deliver safe products for human use. Alternative methods of testing products are quickly becoming available as more and more emphasis is put on finding avenues of non-animal testing.
