Um, okay, I just realized I’ve been using a product that’s cruelty-free, but may be owned by a company that is not cruelty-free. I’m totally skeeved out. There are two other companies like this — Tom’s of Maine (owned by Colgate) and The Body Shop (owned by L’Oreal). They are both cruelty-free — they are actually CCIC-approved-cruelty-free so you know that their ingredients and their finished products are not tested on animals. But they are owned by companies who actively test on animals.
Theoretically, I think I should support cruelty-free sub-companies — so their parent companies will become impressed with how well their cruelty-free divisions are doing, and decide to become cruelty-free themselves. Rewarding good behavior, so to speak. In practice, however, I’ve had trouble making myself buy products that are, in effect, owned by cruel companies.
Anyway, I’d never heard of the company Elon Essentials before — but I was shopping at White Rabbit Beauty — the store that only sells cruelty-free cosmetics — and I decided to try the Elon “Moisture Therapy Replenishing Masque.” It’s called a “masque,” but really it’s a deep conditioner. Supposedly it’s for very dry hair, and it deeply moisturizes, replenishes, softens, and smooths dry, overtreated hair. it has soy, rice, oat, and wheat proteins that deeply hydrate to seal in moisture and repair each hair strand. It “protects and restores softness and manageability.”
I ended up liking the conditioner a lot. It’s a very good deep conditioner — it’s really thick and has a texture like crisco — and I only use it once a week because more than that would definitely overcondition my hair. It has an interesting smell — it smells like . . . a hair salon. That kind of strange, chemical odor that you smell when you walk through the doors into a salon. I decided to write up a review of it here, and I looked up Elon Essentials, and I learned that unfortunately, while Elon Essentials is cruelty-free, it does seem to be owned by the same people who own Dartmouth Pharmaceuticals, which probably tests on animals. I couldn’t find out if they do or not — but they do produce a lot of prescription cold/allergy medications, which makes me suspicious, since I think all prescription stuff has to be tested on animals by law (to my understanding). It shouldn’t matter since that’s separate from the Elon Essentials line, and the Elon Essentials line is definitely cruelty-free, but still, it skeeves me out a little, and I’m taking a star off for that. I’ll probably stick with Paul Mitchell from here on out — you just know that’s a company that is not involved with animal testing of any kind. (If I find out Dartmouth Pharmaceuticals does not test on animals, I’ll bump the rating one star up.)
Elon Essentials is CCIC-approved-cruelty-free, and PETA-approved as well (!). It is not vegan or organic.
Elon Moisture Therapy Replenishing Masque (8.5oz) is available for $14.95 from White Rabbit Beauty.
Ingredients: Purified water, behentrimonium chloride, behentrimonium methosulfate, cetearyl alcohol (coconut), cetyl esters, cyclopentasiloxane, shea butter, dimethiconal (silica), phenoyxyethanol, methyl paraben, propyl paraben, hydrolyzed rice protein, hydrolyzed soy protein, hydrolyzed wheat protein, hydrolyzed oat protein, fragrance.
