A post shared by Leaping Bunny (@leapingbunnyprogram) on Sep 4, 2017 at 5:25am PDT

“Animal rights are not a gift we give animals. They are a birth right we have taken from them.” ~ Ryan Phillips

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It’s 2017, surely we don’t need to worry about beauty companies using animals to test out potentially harmful substances. We must be far more advanced than that by now, right?

Wrong.

Not after all of the knowledge that we now have at our fingertips, all the awareness that we have been given through animal rights organizations, all the protests that have taken place in honor of the poor animals who have been used as lab rats for our own selfish vanity.

It seems mainstream beauty doesn’t give a sh*t about what is actually right. Animal testing is no dirty secret anymore. We all know it happens, and, presumably, want it to stop. Yet there still seems to be a slew of beauty companies that find it necessary to test out these potentially hazardous products on intelligent, aware, and helpless animals. Some of these companies have claimed to be “cruelty-free” in the past, just to resume animal testing in China (where it is mandatory to test products on animals). And you may still be buying from some of these companies unknowingly.

As a cruelty-free beauty consumer, I know it can be confusing to be certain about a product. The two largest sources of cruelty-free knowledge, PETA and Leaping Bunny, seem to have differing information. PETA’s list of cruelty-free products is considerably more extensive, as all that is required of a company to be PETA certified is a written agreement from that company, and that company will remain on the PETA certified list until essentially proven otherwise.

However, for a company to be Leaping Bunny certified, they must consent to onsite audits that Leaping Bunny conducts. The products I will be sharing today are companies that are Leaping Bunny certified—read more about their standards here.

• ACURE
• Alba Botanica
• American Botanics
• Avalon Organics
• Bella Pierre
• BH Cosmetics
• Black Sheep Organics
• Burt’s Bees
• Concrete Minerals
• Dermalogica
• Desert Essence
• Dr. Wood’s Products
• Elizabeth Van Buren
• Giovanni
• It’s a 10
• JASON
• Jeffree Star Cosmetics
• Kiss My Face
• Lime Crime
• Milani
• OFRA
• Seventh Generation
• The Body Shop
• Wen
• Yes To, Inc.

In the beauty market, your money is your voice. Buying products that do potential harm to animals just slides more money into these companies pockets for them to create more new products, therefore conducting even more potentially harmful tests on animals.

Animal testing is completely unnecessary in today’s world. With all the technology and knowledge we now have, it is completely possible to create great products without using an innocent life to do so. Cruelty-free and vegan products are proven to contain significantly less chemicals in them as well, so if you aren’t interested in mindful buying for the animal’s sake, consider doing it for your own health.

Women apply an estimated total of 500 chemicals daily to their bodies that are proven to cause irritation, cancer, and even play a role in obesity.

Here’s Leaping Bunny’s full shopper’s guide.

Curious about a product? Search it here.

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Author: Emily Cutshaw
Image: Leaping Bunny/Instagram
Editor: Travis May
Copy Editor: Callie Rushton
Social Editor: Waylon Lewis