Cruelty-free products I already use…

Last month I wrote about the reasons why I’ve recently made the switch to living a cruelty-free life. I’ve since written about homemade beauty as an alternative to bought products and the animal-friendly products I used to prepare for the UK Blog Awards. Today I’m looking at products that I already use and the cosmetics I’m currently carrying around in my make-up bag. Since the switch I’ve carried on using up the products I already own – this is a thrifty blog after all, and I can’t bear waste – but the difference is that whenever I use a product that’s been sitting in my makeup box for ages, I check the labels.I want to know what I can keep (the animal-friendly brands) and what will eventually be chucked. And when I can’t find out any info from the label, I google it and check out the brand’s animal testing policy. It’s such a wonderful moment for me when I discover that a product I love and have used for years is on the halo list! Phew, I can carry on using it and continue supporting the brand, safe in the knowledge that they are doing the right thing. Here are a few of the products I already had in my cupboards that are good eggs…Lush

In my bathroom right now is the Ocean Salt face and body scrub, the Cup O’Coffee exfoliating mask and Coalface charcoal soap. The product above is my mascara; I use the ‘Eyes Right’ mascara every day. I was pretty sure that Lush is one of the good guys – they’ve got the ‘fighting animal testing’ logo on their packaging (above) – but I wanted to make 100% sure. I check out their website to learn more about the brand and found a page dedicated to the animal testing policy. Their stance on animal testing is completely clear: they will not buy raw materials from any company that tests anything on any animals for any purpose and will never test any of their own products on animals either.

Ecover

Yes, my washing-up liquid is cruelty-free! I’m celebrating by doing a little dance while washing up. This brand is great in so many ways: the liquid is made from renewable plant-based ingredients which reduces pollution, bottles are made from recycled and plantplastics, the formula is fine for sensitive skin and the packaging is recyclable. Boom! And of course, the leaping bunny logo is pride of place on the front of the bottle. The Ecover FAQ pages tells us “Since the beginning, we never tested finished products or ingredients on animals, and we have never ordered such tests by third parties either.” I’m switching all my household cleaning products over to cruelty-free brands so as I run out of washing powder, bathroom cleaner and hand soap I’ll be replacing them with cruelty-free alternatives. I’m sure that this isn’t the last time Ecover will be on my list.

Carmex
I was pleased to find that Carmex doesn’t test on animals. I found their lip balm floating around the bottom of my handbag and looked it up. Honestly, I was about to take a ‘what in your handbag?’ pic for a photo challenge on Instagram, and it was the day after I published my first blog post about living a cruelty-free life. Wouldn’t it be awful if the first photo I posted the very next day included a brand that tested on animals?! So I really wanted to be sure before posting that photo! Thanks to the Carmex FAQ page I was able to find out that their stance against animal testing has been part of the brand’s culture for almost 80 years. And I’m rather happy about that, because their balms are my go-to lipcare and I need the SPF protection in the summer.Palmers

One of my hero products – we all have them don’t we? Those products that it would be hard to live without? – is the Palmers cocoa butter hand cream. I have such dry skin on my hands, all year round, so I always have two or three on the go at one time. There’ll be one tube in my handbag, one in the car, one on my bedside table and I’ve even bought a tube for mum so there’s always one at her house, just in case I don’t have a tube with me. It’s a sad – and sore – day when I don’t have a tube of this miracle cream to hand (excuse the pun). So I felt a little wobbly as I looked into the Palmers policy on animal testing. The packaging says “against animal testing” but I’m a belt-and-braces kind of girl and wanted to be sure. I looked it up and found my answer on the Palmers general information page. It says “Palmer’s is a “cruelty-free” company and does NOT conduct product tests on animals.” I’m keeping an eye on their suncare products for summer – I quite fancy using the sheer SPF50 spray but haven’t found it in stores yet.I’m switching over to cruelty-free alternatives every time I need to purchase a new product and I think this is a sensible, no-waste way to bring the leaping bunny into my life. I don’t need to throw out full bottles of shampoo just because I’ve recently decided to switch over – that would be a waste of money and resources. I’m simply replacing products one-by-one until every item in my home is cruelty-free. It’s a way of life for me and there’s no hurry – I’ll be buying non-animal-tested products forever so I can take my time and find the right substitutes for me and my family. I’ve made an easy swap with my handsoap above, which actually costs less than my usual brand anyway.  I hope you’ll switch a couple of items over to cruelty-free too this month and please let me know if you do – or any of your own favourite products or tips for living cruelty-free – by leaving me a comment below.