Kylie Cosmetics goes vegan but animal products and testing still rife in the beauty industry

June 30, 2021 Claire Hamlett

Kylie Jenner’s billion-dollar beauty brand is going vegan. Jenner revealed on Instagram on Saturday that she “felt it was time to elevate” and that her makeup line, Kylie Cosmetics, will “join the VEGAN and CLEAN family”.

With new Kylie Cosmetics products liable to sell out within minutes, and Jenner having 244 million followers on Instagram, you could scarcely find a bigger platform to get people thinking about what ingredients go into their makeup. And if the positive comments left below the Instagram post are anything to go by, Jenner’s fans are pleased by the move.

Animal-derived ingredients are commonly used in many cosmetic products, including lanolin, a wax produced by sheep, often found in eyeshadows; guanine, derived from fish scales, found in lipsticks and mascaras; and beeswax, also found in many lipsticks and mascaras. Some ingredients can be of either plant or animal origins, such as stearic acid and squalene, but it may be difficult to determine which based on a product ingredient list.

According to the ethical consumer guide Ethical Elephant, Kylie Cosmetics already had a number of vegan products available, but now the entire range will forgo animal-derived ingredients. Ethical Elephant also had confirmation from the company that it has never tested its products on animals and remains committed to being cruelty-free even after Jenner sold a majority stake in the company to beauty giant Coty in 2019. Coty and some of their subsidiary brands test on animals when required by law.

According to Ethical Consumer, 80 per cent of countries still allow cosmetics to be tested on animals, though only China legally requires those sold in China (but not made in China, with some exceptions introduced in May 2021) to be tested on animals. Some countries ban cosmetics from being tested on animals, while others also ban the sale of cosmetic products tested on animals abroad.

In 2013, the European Union banned the sale of cosmetics and ingredients in the EU that have been tested on animals, after having implemented a ban on animal testing for finished cosmetic products in 2004 and for ingredients used in makeup in 2009. However, even after these bans came into force, the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of Chemicals (REACH) – an EU chemical safety regulation – required all chemicals used in Europe to be re-tested for safety by June 2018. The guidelines asked organisations to use non-animal testing methods where possible, but some of the chemicals that are used in cosmetic products will have been tested on animals for REACH as recently as 2018.

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Norway, Israel, and Switzerland have bans similar to those in the EU, while only three states in the U.S. - California, Illinois, and Nevada - banned the sale of animal-tested cosmetics at the start of 2020. Other countries with bans or restrictions on animal testing for cosmetics include Turkey, Taiwan, and Australia, which is still in the process of implementing its ban.

Surveys carried out by Humane Society International show that there is widespread public opposition to animal testing for cosmetics. There are several non-animal methods available for testing skin sensitivity to different products, including using human cells.

People who want to avoid animal testing and products in their cosmetics should also be aware that the tools used to apply them may contain animal products too. Many makeup brushes are made from squirrel, mink, sable, horse (sometimes called “pony” or “camel”), or goat hair, and are manufactured in countries with few or no animal welfare protections. A PETA investigation revealed in 2018 that badgers were being illegally captured from the wild and kept in cages before being killed for their fur to produce makeup brushes as well as paint and shaving brushes.

There are a number of useful online resources to help you find cosmetics brands that are both vegan and cruelty-free and to know which brands to avoid:

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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