The bottom line is that all cosmetic ingredients have been tested on animals at some point in time or are known to be safe based on decades of use. Nevertheless, some cosmetic companies promote their products with claims such as "Cruelty-Free" or "Not Tested on Animals" in their labeling or advertising. The unrestricted use of these phrases by cosmetic companies is possible because there are no legal definitions for these terms.

What these terms really mean are:

• The company has not personally tested the products on animals. Instead, the company has purchased ingredients from a supplier who has tested these ingredients on animals or contracts out the testing of the product to a third party.
• The product and its ingredients have not been tested on animals within the past five years. This is called the rolling five-year rule because the deadline "rolls" from year to year. The manufacture can then claim that their products are not "currently" tested on animals.
• The company does not manufacture or buy products or ingredients that have been tested on animals beyond a fixed cut-off date.
• The company attempts to determine the safety of its finished products using scientific literature, raw material safety testing databases, alternatives, including the use of human volunteers.

As you can see, the words "cruelty-free" can be quite misleading.

Back to product safety main page