Within the past 20 years, the cosmetic consumer mentality has changed, and buying patterns have shifted towards companies with more sustainable and ethical practices. As a result, cosmetics companies and stores are developing and advertising products that meet higher standards in terms of sustainability and animal testing ethics.
The cosmetic industry is an ever-growing space, with new products constantly being added to popular stores like Sephora, Ulta Beauty and Target. According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the average American uses six to twelve cosmetic products daily.
However, many large corporations within the cosmetic industry often employ various methods of product testing, ingredient sourcing and packaging that are continuously questioned for their ethical and sustainable practices. Following a rise of sustainability prioritization, both consumers and California government officials have begun to rethink cosmetic production practices.
Following this trend, many cosmetic companies have adopted this mentality as well. Credo, a popular chain of cosmetic stores in San Francisco, aims to promote a more sustainable way of thinking about makeup and skincare. Credo stores only sell small, independently owned brands that follow their strict sustainability policy. This policy bans over 2700 toxic ingredients, requires non-animal testing on all products, strives for clear labeling of ingredients and uses more sustainable packaging.
photo by Linda Palmer
“[We want] to change the way that people think about beauty, particularly whether it’s clean beauty or non-clean beauty. Whether it’s the ingredients, the product packaging, the supply chain or labor, all of these things have standards at Credo which are more prevalent than the industry standards at large,” Credo store employee Kelly Rounds said.
Many consumers have begun to take sustainability into account when purchasing products too. A 2020 McKinsey US consumer survey found that 60% of respondents would pay more for a product with sustainable packaging. Another recent study by NielsenIQ found that 78% of US consumers said a sustainable lifestyle is important to them. With the consumer mindset turning more sustainability focused, brands are trying to meet this demand. “I feel like it’s almost become a trend to be sustainable. I’ve seen brands release clean new lines or new formulas that are vegan,” Lick-Wilmerding High School student Leah Lashinsky ’25 said.
The companies that claim to use more sustainable methods are performing better in sales than companies that are not. A February 2023 joint study with McKinsey and NielsenIQ compared brands that advertise an environmental and ethical company to brands that do not. Examples of these claims are “eco-friendly,” “fair wage” and “cruelty free.” Over the past five-year period, brands that use these claims made an average of 28% cumulative growth while the companies without these claims have only seen a 20% growth.
Cosmetic animal testing is a critical part of a brand’s ethics. Credo and its brands do not animal test in accordance with their standards. Bonnie Knight, a Bay Area animal rights activist who has done a lot of volunteer work with companies like PETA, said “Cosmetic animal testing is one of the forms of animal abuse of which people are the least aware.”
In the US, animals in the testing industry are subjected to skin, eyes and bodily harm by harsh concentrated chemicals. According to the International Humane Society, the most common tests within the cosmetics industry are the Draize eye and skin tests. Restrained animals, usually rabbits, have the chemicals dripped into eyes or shaved patches of skin. This often causes painful reactions or even blindness to the animals. The purpose of the tests are to measure irritation or corrosion to the eyes or skin.
Many animals die as a result of these tests or are later killed after the testing is complete. According to the International Humane Society, 500,000 animals die every year due to animal testing. The International Humane Society also reported that these tests often produce unreliable or inconsistent results.
In California, there has been movement towards enforcing a more ethical and sustainable cosmetic industry on the policy level. In 2002, California passed a law that only allowed animal testing if there were no other methods of validated testing available. In 2020, California banned companies’ ability to work around this law and animal test in other states, later selling the products in California. Exceptions to the ban include if the testing falls under all three categories of wide use without replacement, specific human health problems supported by research and no non-animal alternative. This ban stops all cosmetics that were tested on animals after 2020 from being sold but still allows products and ingredients that were tested on animals prior to the legislature to continue to be sold. This ban also does not stop these brands from selling in other countries where animal testing is permitted.
California was one of the first states to have an animal testing ban and as of right now, ten other states have partial bans. These bans stem from the inhumane nature of testing and their unnecessary function. Animal testing has been shown to produce unreliable results and is replaceable by more humane methods such as computer simulation and in-vitro testing. The bans have been a long awaited victory for animal rights activists that wrote and protested for an end of the testing, but there is still progress to be made. “It’s part of a problem of animals not being valued in our society,” Knight said.
The increased consumer awareness and desire for sustainable and ethical practices in California show that people are starting to realize the larger effects of companies, products and buying habits. As people’s mindsets continue to focus on these effects, what future changes to other big industries might develop?
