Animals are paying for your makeup

CAIRO – 19 July 2017: Big cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies, such as Dior and L'Oréal, are still experimenting on animals in spite of all the laws and regulations that have been passed in many countries to control the practice.

Animals have been subjected to experiments and cruelty throughout history since the time of Aristotle (384–322 BC), who was a physician as well as a philosopher, and Galen (129–199/217 AD), the Greek pioneer in the history of medicine. Both of them conducted experiments on animals to understand anatomy and physiology better. It is true that testing on animals has helped humanity a great deal; for example, it helped us in 1922 to isolate insulin from dogs, but soon, animal testing increased in medical fields, introducing more solutions, but more cruelty as well.

In 1876, Britain regulated painful animal experimentation, but did not entirely abolish it, which led to a peak in animal testing in the 1980s, before declining until the current time due to anti-vivisection movements; however, again, it did not stop completely.


Animal, Rat, Lobund-Wistar - Janet Stephens - Wikimedia commons

To help stop companies from testing on animals, the PETA website provides a list of the companies that pay for testing products and components on animals. The list contains big names in the cosmetics industry, such as Avon, Victoria’s Secret, Saint Laurent, Maybelline, Max Factor, L'Oréal, Dior and more.

Instead, PETA offers cruelty-free alternatives, such as The Body Shop, Bath& Body Works, Honest, NYX, Dermalogica and more.