100%-Cruelty-Free Companies

I wanted to start off by saying that I’ve spent a lot of time on this 100%-cruelty-free list, but I’ve also written a bunch of other lists that I think you might find informative. I’d put them at the end of this list, but you’d never get there, so instead I’ll start off with them:

The Abbreviated List of 100%-Cruelty-Free Companies — this list is the abbreviated list of cruelty-free companies whose products can be found in most health food stores, Whole Foods, and natural drugstores (and one at Target!). If you don’t have time to shop online, this is a nice list to take with you to the store. (This list is San Francisco bay area based — if you’re looking for products in a different region, please look at comments kind readers wrote listing cruelty-free companies in their city/state/country.)

The List of 100%-Cruelty-Free, Organic Companies — this is a list of CCIC-approved-cruelty-free companies that also state their products are organic. (Just the American companies — I haven’t gone through and found organic companies from any cruelty-free companies outside the U.S.)

The List of Cruelty-Free Pet Foods — This is not a Leaping Bunny list — it’s a PETA list — unfortunately, the Leaping Bunny does not have a list of cruelty-free pet food (because it limits itself to cosmetics), so I’ve had to instead find cruelty-free pet food on the PETA website, which has a very nice “caring consumer” shopping guide that includes a pet food section (by the way, thank you PETA! No one else has this sort of cruelty-free petfood list! It’s great!). The website states that PETA sends numerous pet food companies letters asking if they conduct laboratory tests on animals, and then puts the ones that respond stating that they do not test on the cruelty-free list. (More information about this is available here.) Unfortunately, most of these pet foods are difficult to find in local stores — “Newman’s Own” (an excellent product I highly recommend — it’s cruelty-free and organic) is the only one I’ve seen at mainstream pet stores such as Pet Food Express. (These pet foods have not been tested on animals — but a lot of them are not vegan, vegetarian, or free-range/cage-free/humane-conditions-for-animals involving. Unfortunately.)

The List of Cruelty-Free Senior Diet Dog Foods – This is a subset of the list of cruelty-free pet foods — it only lists cruelty free dog foods suitable for older dogs.

The List of Cruelty-Free Charities — This is a list of charities that do not use animal-testing. They have been given the Humane Charity Seal of Approval.

The List of 50%-Cruelty-Free Companies — this is a list of companies that do not test their final products on animals, but they do not make sure their initial ingredients have not been tested on animals. Since a lot of animal testing can occur at the initial stages, I find this distressing. (I do not buy any of these products. I hope you will only buy these products when you can’t find any Leaping-Bunny-approved alternatives!)

The List of 0%-Cruelty-Free (Cruel) Companies That Test on Anima ls — this is a list of companies that do test on animals. Please do not buy anything from companies on this list.

Anyway, on to the 100%-cruelty-free list!

Background on the 100%-cruelty-free list: the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics (aka the Leaping Bunny) has made a list of really cruelty-free companies at www.leapingbunny.org, and this is the basis of my 100%-cruelty-free list. You may 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, it’s because a lot of products that are marked “final product not tested on animals” or “Company X does not test on animals” actually HAVE been tested on animals. Yes! They lie to you! 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.

Lie by implication: “Final product not tested on animals.”
What this really means: “We at Company X don’t test on animals, but we don’t make sure our suppliers didn’t test the ingredients they sold to us on animals. Heck if we know. We don’t want to be held responsible for anything like that. We turn a blind eye to what happened to our raw materials before they got to us.”

Lie by implication 2: “Brand X does not test on animals.”
What this really means: “We don’t run any animal tests ourselves. But we turn a blind eye to what our suppliers do — we don’t make sure our suppliers supplied us with animal-testing-free ingredients.”

So you can only be sure a product is cruelty free if it says point-blank that the final product AND the initial ingredients that went into it have not been tested on animals. Or, you can buy products from companies that have pledged to uphold the Humane Cosmetics Standard and are Leaping Bunny approved! In the U.S., the organization that certifies companies as upholding the Humane Cosmetics Standard is the Coalition for Consumer Information in Cosmetics (CCIC — aka the Leaping Bunny people). All companies that are on the Leaping Bunhy’s master list are guaranteed to provide you with 100%-animal-testing-free products. They have made a voluntary pledge to not test any of their ingredients or final products on animals, and they’ve made sure their suppliers have also made the same pledge — thus, their products are guaranteed to be 100% free of animal testing. (By cruelty-free the Leaping Bunny 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 Vegan Action’s List of truly vegan products.)

The exact wording of how the Leaping Bunny describes the pledge it requires companies to take if they want to be on the list is:

“It is a voluntary pledge that companies make not to test on animals during any stage of product development. The company’s ingredient suppliers make the same pledge and the result is a product guaranteed to be 100% free of new animal testing. Commitments are renewed on an annual basis. This program applies only to cosmetics, personal care, and household products.“

In case you were wondering, I love PETA, but the PETA shopping guide is not hardcore enough for me — it lists companies whose parent companies test on animals, or who are required by law to test on animals, and it has this weird fixed cut off date thing that I’ve never been able to remember for more than five minutes after I’ve read up about it, so it just doesn’t work for me. And honestly, for years the whole thing just confused the heck out of me so I gave up on trying to buy cruelty-free products. It was only when I sat down and tried to figure out the headache-inducing issues involved in animal testing that I found the Leaping Bunny website and I’ve been happily buying products recommended by it ever since, safe in the knowledge that the products I buy with the Leaping Bunny seal are truly 100%-cruelty-free. The Leaping Bunny pledge is not only more stringent than PETA’s pledge, but much more straightforward and easy to remember, and it is internationally upheld as well – the Leaping Bunny’s Humane Cosmetics Standard is upheld by GoCrueltyFree.org in the U.K, ChooseCrueltyFree.org.au in Australia, and the ECEAE in Europe, Animalia in Finland, One Voice in France, and Vier Pfoten in Austria. (If I’ve missed any coalitions that certify 100%-cruelty-free organizations, please let me know! I found most of these on the ECEAE’s list of member coalitions, and I went through all of the ECEAE’s member coalitions looking to see if they had a list of 100%-cruelty-free companies. Unfortunately I do not speak any of the languages these websites are in, so it is quite possible I missed a list of cruelty-free companies somewhere.)

I only buy products from companies that have signed the Leaping Bunny standard — not only do I believe they are reputably cruelty-free, in the sense that they aren’t lying to me about being cruelty-free the way many, many companies do — but also I really like the idea of having a go-to list somewhere I can access. I think it’s really useful. So while I get many requests to add this or that company to my list because they “really are cruelty-free despite not being on one of these lists,” I won’t do it, because I figure those companies either aren’t really cruelty-free if they aren’t willing to be certified by a Humane-Cosmetics-Standard-upholding organization, or they annoyingly think they’re too good for a list made by an organization that goes out of its way (and incurs a great deal of expense) to provide to the public, free of charge, a really wonderful resource. (Though this is just my opinion — if you have researched cruelty-free issues and have come to have a different opinion from me, I do not mind at all! Really. I would never presume to tell anyone what to think.)

After that huge introduction, here are the 100%-cruelty-free companies.

The companies with the American flag are from the USA’s LeapingBunny.org List:

Cruelty-free subsidiary of parent company that does not comply with the Leaping Bunny Standard.
Leaping Bunny Logo Company is a licensee of the CCIC Logo.

100%-Cruelty-Free Companies

Anyway, on to the 100%-cruelty-free list!

The 100%-Cruelty-Free List

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