Make-Up

If we’re going to use make-up, how can we be cruelty-free and natural? One of the biggest concerns around cosmetics is animal testing. We have dug out the detail on the cruelty-free certifications (or lack of) for all the brands on our table, plus we look at what the REACH legislation means for animal testing, and which brands are vegan, or palm-free.

Another big issue is the word ‘natural’. There is, in fact, no legal definition. Again, we list the certification standards to look for, as well as discussing issues around genetic engineering (GMOs), toxic chemicals, microplastic ingredients, and packaging.

We also have a not-so-glittery update on the Responsible Mica Initiative, news of make-up protests in South Korea, and reader’s comments on making up under lockdown.

Thanks also to researcher Leah Gordon, who spent some time under lockdown investigating which brands from the world’s biggest make-up companies are best all-round for darker skin.

Which brands produce make-up for those with darker skin?

Since the early noughties there has been a significant growth in cosmetics for non-white people available in major pharmacies and supermarkets in the UK.

More and more brands offer darker shades of foundation, but the variety of shades remains quite limited. The growth is obviously welcome, but darker-skinned makeup-users still struggle to find shades that match their skin.

Find out which make-up brands are best for darker skin, and use this article together with this guide to see whether you can find the make-up that is best for your skin, as well as best for workers and the planet.

Is your make-up really cruelty-free?

The first thing to remember is that the terms ‘cruelty-free’ and ‘vegan’ mean different things. One is about avoiding animal testing (the former), and the other avoiding animal ingredients (the latter).

Animal testing of cosmetic products and ingredients and the sale of animal-tested cosmetics has been officially banned in Europe since 2013. However, many brands such as KVD Vegan Beauty (owned by LVMH) are part of company groups that operate worldwide and sell in countries where animal testing is still required.

In fact, most of the biggest multinational companies have one brand in their portfolios that is certified and marketed as cruelty-free, including Liz Earle (Boots), NYX (L’Oréal), Smashbox (Estee Lauder) and Cover Girl (Coty). This way they don’t miss out on the customers who wouldn’t buy their products otherwise.

The two main certifications to look out for are Beauty Without Bunnies (by PETA), and Leaping Bunny (by Cruelty Free International).

Leaping Bunny certification is backed up by audits of the company’s supply chain and requires companies to have a ‘fixed cut-off date’ (FCOD) after which none of its ingredients were tested.

Leaping Bunny is therefore more stringent than a PETA approval, which requires the company to sign a legally binding statement but does not include audits or a FCOD. Ethical Consumer researchers audit Lush’s supply chain for its animal testing compliance.

The EU cosmetics testing ban, however, is contradicted by another piece of legislation called REACH. This can mean some ingredients used in cosmetics and other products may be tested on animals if alternative methods have not been approved.

If a company is certified by Leaping Bunny, it has the strictest criteria against animal testing but, at the moment, no certification can guarantee that some ingredients won’t have been tested under this law.

Cruelty Free International is actively campaigning to minimise the use of animal testing under REACH, and you can sign their petition, demanding that the cosmetics testing bans are honoured, here.

Vegan make-up and beauty products

Increasingly, companies are labelling which of their products are vegan. The only fully vegan companies on our table are PHB Ethical Beauty and Pacifica. Tropic Skincare is vegan but its company group is not.

Some companies have vegan brands, such as ‘B’ by Superdrug, Distillery by Avon or KVD Vegan Beauty (now owned by LVMH).

Other companies such as Body Shop, Green People, Lush, Nude By Nature, and Odylique are vegetarian but use animal by-products such as beeswax, honey, lanolin from sheep wool, or shellac, a secretion from beetles (Body Shop only, and not in new formulations). Revolution Beauty says 76% of their products are vegan, and growing. Lavera says 95%.

Make-up ingredients that might be from animals

Palm oil in make-up

Palm oil and palm oil derivatives have become an important component in many make-up products. In particular, it is used for its viscosity and as a skin conditioning agent.

Best palm ratings

There were three companies on our table, Lush, Odylique and PHB Ethical Beauty, which made the most effort to be palm-free, and disclosed volumes of palm ingredients used.

As PHB put it,

“The industry is linked to major issues such as deforestation, habitat degradation, climate change, animal cruelty and indigenous rights abuses in the countries where it is produced, as the land and forests must be cleared for the development of the oil palm plantations”.

However, all three still had not found guaranteed alternatives to small volumes of ingredients that were derived from palm, but were working on it.

Middle and worst palm ratings

Companies scored a middle rating if palm ingredients they used were mostly RSPO certified, or organic. Dr Hauschka and Green People were both organic but had no information on palm derivatives. Estee Lauder, L’Oréal, LVMH, Boots and Shiseido all scored middle too.

Those that scored a worst rating, for low certification levels or lack of information were Chanel, Clarins, Coty, Lavera, Natura, Nude by Nature, Pacifica, Revlon, Revolution Beauty, Superdrug and Tropic Skincare.

Natural Certification standards

Any brand can, in theory, describe its cosmetic products as organic or natural because the words are not regulated, unlike the strict regulations around the term ‘organic’ for food.

Brands like Nude by Nature may use plant-based rather than synthetic ingredients, but they do not discuss the agricultural practices used to grow these ingredients.

To find the brands that are serious about being natural and using organically certified plant ingredients, look for these certification labels:

GMOs in make-up

Genetically modified organisms are seen by Ethical Consumer to be a ‘controversial technology’, largely due to the social and economic impacts of seeds being patented by corporations, but also their relationship to herbicide and pesticide use too.

In the three biggest soya producing countries, almost all the soya is GM. Many cosmetic ingredients can be made from soya, including soya lecithin for softening and conditioning. Corn may also be GM, and derivates are used for a variety of ingredients, which probably won’t be labelled as GM. The best way to avoid GM is to opt for products that are certified organic.

There is also a new type of GM, sometimes known as GMO 2.0, which is said to be ‘shaking up the industry’, but with even less regulation, or consumer awareness. The technology can go under many different names, from synthetic biology or synbio, to bioengineering, ‘engineered natural ingredients’, or even ‘plant cell culture’ or fermentation.

In synthetic biology, yeast, bacteria or algae undergo DNA editing, so that they produce new  ingredients. For instance, hyaluronic acid (for hydration) or squalene (for spreadability or absorption) may come from such a process.

Companies may claim that producing ingredients in a lab uses less land and is therefore more sustainable, but feedstock such as sugar still needs to be grown in the real world to get the microorganisms to do their work.

Toxics

Campaigners warn that a US UK trade deal ‘could flood Britain with toxic cosmetics’. Unlike in the EU and UK, where the industry has to prove an ingredient is safe, in the US the regulator has to prove that it’s not.
 

This difference means that only 11 toxic ingredients are banned in the US, while the UK currently bans over 1300. Cosmetics refers to more than just make-up, but as recently as 2019, for example, asbestos was found in make-up marketed to children in the US.

Our toxics rating for cosmetic products is based on what a company says about the use of three key chemicals: parabens, phthalates and triclosan. Of course, there are other problem ingredients, but we use these as an indicator.

Companies with a policy of no use of these chemicals or clear, dated targets for ending their use, which got a best rating, were Odylique, PHB Ethical Beauty, Green People, Lavera, Nude by Nature and Tropic Skincare.

The latest on the use of mica in make-up

Mica is used by almost all make-up companies for its glittery qualities. But a quarter of global mica comes from illegal and unregulated mines in India, where widespread poverty means child labour is common.

The independent charity KSCF had been working on this issue for over a decade before January 2017 when big players in the cosmetics industry publicly took notice. Members now include Chanel, Clarins, Coty, L’Oréal, LVMH and Shiseido.

The Responsible Mica Initiative was formed with the aim of eradicating child labour in the Indian mica mines by 2022. In 2018, Reuters reported that the coalition had failed to take “any tangible action on the ground”, and that at least nine people had died in collapses of illegal mines that year. RMI members defended themselves saying they were still in the preparation phase.

The Indian government also had plans to regulate the industry but KSCF said they thought more could have been done. Since before the RMI started, KSCF had been creating ‘child friendly villages’. In these villages child labour is banned and all children under 14 go to school as well as learning their rights and collectively organising to speak out. KSCF have freed over 80,000 children from child labour including 3,000 from mica mines.

In May 2019, further reports stated that the RMI was still in the planning stages, and only had a team of three people working on it. In July, it was reported that not one mine was yet legalised, and, in November 2019, Reuters said there had been 19 deaths since 2018, and there was still concern at the pace of change from RMI and the Indian government.
 

Protests against make-up

In late 2018, a protest movement took off in South Korea under the cry of Escape the Corset! In a nation where up to a third of young women have gone to the lengths of getting cosmetic surgery, thousands of images began to appear on social media of smashed up make-up.

#EscapeTheCorset came in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Many women also cut their hair and changed the way they dressed, stating “Looking perfect is unpaid labour and we have had enough.”