I was thinking about the things I haven’t bought lately because they aren’t cruelty-free, and how I wish cruelty-free companies would start producing them. All of them are things I’ve decided I can live without, but I would be absolutely thrilled if I could buy these from companies with strict no-animal-testing policies:

• Dog toothpaste. Actually this isn’t a big problem for me right now — I have a tube of cruel dog toothpaste that still has quite a bit of toothpaste in it — my dog hates having her teeth brushed so much that I brush her teeth at most once a month (and it’s traumatic for both of us), which means that the current tube will last me another few months. But when the time comes that I will need to buy more dog toothpaste I really won’t have any options other than buying some children’s toothpaste (I think that’s safe for dogs, right? If it has no fluoride in it?). The problem with that is that most children’s toothpastes are cherry, grape or raspberry flavored (Tom’s of Maine makes a strawberry-flavored one) in hopes that small children won’t dislike the toothpastes, but my dog absolutely hates fruit flavoring, so those fruit flavors make brushing her teeth really difficult. (There’s nothing quite like holding a squirming dog with one hand and trying to stick a toothbrush in its mouth with the other while the dog is frantically shaking its head and trying to spit the toothbrush out.) The current evil toothpaste I have right now is actually beef-flavored, which is really, really disgusting, because I suspect the beef flavor is from factory farmed beef (it would be great if it were synthetic instead), and because beef-scented dog breath is just nasty, but my dog just loves it, which makes brushing her teeth a lot easier. (Though she does keep trying to eat the toothpaste, which makes it a little difficult to maneuver the brush — it would be better if it were something she was sort of indifferent to.) I’d really appreciate it if a cruelty-free company would produce a toothpaste in a flavor a dog would like (Hello Paul Mitchell? Something to add to your new pet product line?) (preferably without extracts of beef — maybe . . . vanilla frosting flavored? That’s the only thing I can think of that my dog would like that wouldn’t be a disgusting toothpaste flavor. I mean, my dog also loves peanut butter, but peanut butter dog breath is even more unappealing than beef-flavored dog breath to me.) Though I have noticed that Paul Mitchell has started producing “dental wipes” for dogs — I can’t decide if these are a great invention or if I wish Paul Mitchell would just produce a dog toothpaste instead (I’ll have to give the wipes a try sometime!), and that Dr. Goodpet makes a breath freshener for dogs that sounds fantastic — I really dislike dog breath (though I actually think my dog’s yearly scheduled anaesthetized-tooth-cleanings are the best prevention for really bad dog breath — those appointments are totally worth the time and money, though the whole anaesthetic part scares me a lot).
• Unscented, aluminum-containing, no-residue-leaving deodorant/antiperspirant. I’ve written before about how I’ve had trouble finding deodorants that work — in my posts on L’Occitane deodorant, French Transit crystal deodorant, and the Body Shop Aloe deodorant, I’ve mentioned how much I wish some CCIC-approved company would produce an unscented, aluminum-containing deodorant that actually works. L’Occitane so far is the best of the bunch — aluminum-containing so it really works, clear so it leaves no residue, but it has a very woodsy fragrance that I’d prefer it did not have. A woodsy fragrance is a small price to pay for no BO, but still . . .
• Instant stain remover like those Shout Wipes or the Tide stain remover pen. I used to carry these around in my purse and they were fantastic. I think the Shout Wipes cleaned better, but the Tide pen was more convenient and took up less space. However, neither Shout nor Tide are on the CCIC’s cruelty-free list, and Shout is owned by SC Johnson, and Tide is owned by Procter & Gamble, both of which are evil companies. So I have not been able to bring myself to buy Shout Wipes or the Tide stain remover pen since I ran out of those a few months ago, and my clothes have suffered a bit — I seem to drip sauce on my shirt at least once a month, and I used to just instantly remove the stains but now I have to suffer walking around with a stained shirt. Yuck. It’s really embarassing. Even worse, I’ve found that stains left in for even a few hours tend to be more permanent than stains that are removed immediately with Shout wipes — I’ve had to relegate a few of my shirts from the possible-to-wear-outside-the-house to the only-wear-inside-the-house category. I did a little research and found that there are some alternatives: there’s the Janie dry stick from Hickory Farms, the Magic Wand from Prym-Dritz, the Stain Remover from Evercare, and the Carbona Oxy Magic Stain Removing Pen from Delta-Pronatura. I don’t think any of those are owned by evil companies like Procter & Gamble, but on the other hand, they are not guaranteed 100%-cruelty-free — which would make me feel a little evil if I bought them. Why don’t the good, 100%-never-test-on-animals companies that make laundry products like Method, Heather’s Naturals, Earth Friendly Products (Ecos), Seventh Generation, Allens Naturally, Biokleen, Citra-Solv, Daisy Blue Naturals, Forever New, The Good Home Company, Magick Botanicals, Mountain Green of Arizona, Nature Clean, or Planet start making instant stain remover sticks?  I’d really appreciate it . . .

Categories : against animal testing, cruelty free