Fashion & Beauty Products Using Animal Testing

Photo Credit: Becky Birds Blog

In the recent years, the number of beauty cosmetic companies using animal testing has been rising. This has become a norm for well-known brands, in order to be in the competition with their rivals and competing in the market. Not only are the cosmetic products used on animals, but some are even made from them. This includes products such as lipsticks and lip stains which are mostly made using fish scales - know why it gives you those lip shimmers now, ladies?

Sinful Scoop

Shark finned. A gargantuan amount of sharks that were killed for their fins and thrown back to sea. Photo Credit: Tree hugger

 A must-have dish in Chinese weddings and an all-time favorite dish among Singaporeans, it is the shark fin soup. Not only in Singapore but in china and Hong Kong, shark-fin soup is regarded as a delicacy and status symbol.

It is very sad that while enjoying every spoon of this soup, sharks are finned and thrown back in the sea where they die miserably and even worst extinct from their own kind. It is such a pity to let them suffer alive. Fishermen catch them to get their fins and leave those sharks to die in pain in the ocean. It is not fair to let them suffer as they are animals and they do feel pain just like us, human beings.

The Under (LIE)s of fashion

Usage of animal testing over the years have caused too many innocent animals to be killed

Fashion- an essential part of everyone’s life: from clothes, accessories to shoes, you name it, everyone’s interested in them. But have you thought about the origin of the piece of cloth you’re donned in? Not all fashion pieces are made from a good piece. Every year, millions of animals are killed for the clothing industry- all in the name of fashion.

Whether it came from an animal on a fur farm or one who was from the wild, every fur coat caused an animal a tremendous suffering, and even took away a life. It does not matter to the fur farms of the animals' wellbeing.

Think that the animals are at least well taken care of? Think again.

Animals such as minks and foxes are commonly farmed as fur-bearing animals. Not only do the animals spend their lives confined to a filthy cage, waiting for their turn to be turn to a piece of clothing, they are killed with the cheapest method available. Some include suffocation, electrocution- anything to give them their last breath.

Minks trapped in unkempt cages in fur farms in china. Photo Credit: PETA

How would you like it if you were skinned for a piece of clothing?
Just this year, The Guardian stated that "Home Office figures proved that nearly 3.7 million experiments were performed on animals." A rise of 14% on the previous year- This is the sharpest escalation in animal use in medical research since 1986.

More than half of the fur in US came from China- where dogs and cats are often skinned alive. For those who are unaware, Chinese furs are often mislabeled. In this case, there is no way of knowing of what skin you are wearing. Scary, isn’t it?

So what can you do? Have the knowledge that fur coats are the result of animal suffering. Know that this cruelty will continue until the public refuses to buy or wear fur.

Don’t. Wear. Fur. 

Don’t support stores that sell fur and let the owners know why you refuse to buy them. Do what you can- even if it means writing letters to several organizations.

Make a stand.

In the words of Ashley Bell, “I make the right choice, the humane choice, and only use cosmetics that are not tested on animals."

For how long will animals be treated this way? Make the right choice.

The Voice For The Animals

Stripped Down. Shirley Manson campaigning for PETA and supporting the ‘Fur is DEAD’ campaign, posing with a dead fox which was skinned alive. Photo credits: PETA

They say New York is the city that never sleeps and so is the fashion industry. Everyone is getting the latest scoops on what's "in" and what's "out" for the season. Twice a year, fashion designers, brands or "houses" display their latest collections on runway shows for fashion editors, buyers and media to take a look at the season's latest trends. Fashion week are the most important week, and that also means that more innocent animals are harm in the process for fashion.