You may well ask, why not just buy any product that says something about how it doesn’t test on animals on the label when you’re in the drugstore if you’re concerned about animal testing? Basically, because a lot of products in stores that are marked “final product not tested on animals” or “Company X does not test on animals” actually have been tested on animals. Those two phrases are lies by implication — those companies have tested the individual ingredients (but not the final product) on animals, or they have outsourced the animal testing to a different company. So you can only be sure a product is cruelty free if it states that the final bottle of shampoo you are holding in your hands and the initial ingredients that went into it have not been tested on animals. Or if it is on a list created by an anti-animal-testing organization.

The Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics is the organization whose information I use to decide whether a company does or does not test on animals. There are a number of really fantastic animal rights groups that come up with their own lists of animal-testing-free companies, but I’ve picked the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics because it has high standards, it’s a coalition of eight animal-rights groups, it has a great shopping guide, it promotes an international cruelty free logo, it does not charge companies any money to be on its cruelty-free list, the list is available for free to anyone, and I’ve been using it for a while so I’m loyal to it. (It’s not the perfect cruelty-free organization by any means — I sent off for the CCIC free pocket shopping guide and it took about six months before it arrived in my mailbox, and while it’s a lovely pocket shopping guide that I do carry around with me everywhere I go, it’s mostly filled with products that are only available online.)

There are undoubtedly many animal rights groups out there with higher or lower standards than the CCIC’s, and it’s up to every individual to pick the group with the standard that best fulfills his or her own personal judgment of what is or is not animal-testing-free. For me, for right now, I’ve picked the CCIC’s standard, because I think it’s a good standard. The CCIC requires companies to promise that they do not test on animals during any stage of product development, and that their ingredient suppliers make the same pledge. Other less stringent cruelty-free standards might require companies to promise that they do not themselves perform or subcontract any animal testing on ingredients or finished products. To my mind, this would allow those companies to get around the rules by buying ingredients that other companies have already tested on animals (It’s important to remember that most companies don’t make their own ingredients – they buy oils/chemicals/etc from suppliers or laboratories that already extracted or synthesized the ingredients.) (By cruelty-free the CCIC means products that have not been tested on laboratory animals. These products may have animal ingredients in them. If you’re concerned about that, you should cross-reference these with a vegan society’s list of vegan products — the Vegan Action List of truly vegan products seems like a good one.)

Also, I am very impressed with the CCIC’s leaping bunny logo — I think it’s a great idea. Someday I hope that more companies will buy the leaping bunny logo, so I can just turn over any bottle in a store and see if it’s cruelty-free or not and not have to go look up every company on a list. I also like the fact that it’s an international logo — the CCIC is itself a coalition of seven anti-animal-testing organizations, and it has partnered with anti-animal-testing groups in Europe, Canada, and Britain to also use the same standard and the same logo. The companies that endorse the CCIC’s Humane Cosmetics Standard are: Vier Pfoten (Austria), GAIA (Belgium), Animal Alliance of Canada, Föreningen til Dyrenes Beskyttelse i Danmark, Animalia (Finland), EFAP (Greece), Irish Anti Vivisection Society, Lega Anti-Vivisezione (Italy), Een DIER Een VRIEND (the Netherlands) , Asociación para la Defensa de los Derechos del Animal (Spain), Förbundet djurens rätt (Sweden), British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection. Three international organizations also endorse the CCIC’s Humane Cosmetics Standard: the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments, International Fund for Animal Welfare, and the World Society for the Protection of Animals.

The CCIC has an eleven-year-long history. According to its website, the CCIC formed in 1996 in response to the fact that “cruelty free shopping had become so popular as to become confusing, sometimes misleading and ultimately frustrating. Companies had begun designing their own bunny logos, abiding by their own definition of “cruelty free” or “animal friendly” without the participation of animal protection groups.” So, “in response, eight national animal protection groups banded together to form the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics (CCIC). The CCIC promotes a single comprehensive standard and an internationally recognized “leaping bunny” logo.” It is “working with companies to help make shopping for animal-friendly products easier and more trustworthy.”

The CCIC is made up of eight animal-welfare-activist member groups. They are:

American Anti-Vivisection Society
American Humane Association
Beauty Without Cruelty, USA: (212) 989-8073
Doris Day Animal League
The Humane Society of the United States
New England Anti-Vivisection Society

International Partners
Animal Alliance of Canada
European Coalition to End Animal Experiments

So, until the government mandates that all companies that wish to mark their products as animal-testing-free must make sure that the ingredients and the finished product are free of animal testing, I will continue to use the CCIC’s standard.

Categories : against animal testing, cruelty free