Are the Valley Mist products cruelty-free? Yes, absolutely, and so are all of the products that we stock. But did you know that finding out whether a company is cruelty-free or not is much easier than you think? In this blog post I will try to explain further.
What does ‘cruelty-free’ mean?
Technically there is no legal definition for what ‘cruelty-free’ actually means and so it’s use on cosmetic products is unrestricted. However, usually it is interpreted to mean ‘not tested on animals’. Nonetheless, because there is no legal definition of the term it is very easy for companies to dodge around this label by saying that their finished product is cruelty-free, when they still use ingredients that have been tested on animals by a third-party, or by using ingredients that are no longer tested on animals but were tested on animals when they were first introduced to the industry. You can find out more about the ways around the ‘cruelty-free’ label here on the FDA website.
So how you can tell if a company is cruelty-free?
You might be wondering then how it is possible to tell whether or not a company tests in animals. The first way which is by far the easiest is to look for the PETA logo (image below) on the product. Standing for ‘People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’, finding the PETA logo on your product means that it has been approved by the PETA organisation as ‘cruelty-free’. If you can’t find the logo, or want to double-check you can also search the company’s name in PETA’s online database of companies that they have approved as ‘cruelty-free’ here.
However, this is a far from faultless method as many companies, especially small businesses, are simply not on the list at all because they have not been investigated by PETA, like us! But, did you know that animal testing for finished cosmetic products has been banned in the EU since 2004 and for cosmetic ingredients since 2009, and has remained illegal in the UK since Brexit? Therefore, if a company is based in and producing its products in the UK or the EU (like Valley Mist) then you can be sure that they do not test on animals. But animal testing is not banned across the globe, so if the company you are looking into is based outside of the EU and UK, even only partially, then unfortunately it will take some more research to discover their animal testing practices. Furthermore, in China it is illegal for cosmetic products not to be tested on animals before going on sale to the public, so if the cosmetic company sells its products in China then it is likely that they are not cruelty-free. A new law was introduced in China in 2021 that means that some general cosmetics that are imported into China do not need to be tested on animals, so it is possible that the company still may not test in animals, so it’s worth checking! The Ethical Elephant have put together an amazing guide to help you understand China’s animal testing laws as of 2021 much more easily which you can access here.
At Valley Mist…
Here at Valley Mist, as part of our planet-friendly approach, we are completely against the idea of cosmetic animal testing and have been since the beginning. As a result none of our products are or ever have been tested on animals. Furthermore, none of our suppliers test on animals either, for ingredients or other products that we stock. Therefore, if you’re buying from our website you can be sure that the products are cruelty-free – we’ve done the research for you.
That ends our whistle-stop tour of the term ‘cruelty-free’. I hope that it has helped you to better understand the meaning of cruelty-free and the way that the label is used in the cosmetics industry (even though it’s a bit of a maze!).
