Choosing vegan skincare

Plenty of people want the creams and cleansers they use every day to fit the way they live. Vegan skincare is made without animal ingredients and without animal testing. This page explains how to recognise it, using the label and the rules behind it.

What vegan means for skincare

The Vegan Society, the charity that coined the word in 1944, runs a certification called the Vegan Trademark. Under its standards, making a product and its ingredients must not involve any animal product, by-product or derivative. The product and its ingredients must not have been tested on animals by the company, on its behalf, or by anyone it controls.

Vegan and cruelty-free

A cruelty-free label is about testing. It says the product has not been tested on animals. The Vegan Society points out that it says nothing about what is in the product, which can still contain animal-derived ingredients. It also notes that "cruelty-free" is not regulated in the same way everywhere, so schemes can differ.

A vegan product covers both questions at once, the ingredients and the testing.

Animal testing and UK law

UK cosmetics law already bans animal testing of cosmetic products and their ingredients in the UK, where the testing is done to meet the cosmetics rules. A product cannot be sold if its final formula or its ingredients were tested on animals for that purpose. Historic animal test data can still be used.

Reading the ingredients list

Every cosmetic product must carry a list of ingredients, headed "ingredients". They appear in order of weight, largest first. Anything under 1% can come in any order after the rest. Ingredients are listed by their common ingredient names, which are often scientific or Latin.

That is why some animal ingredients are easy to miss. The Vegan Society gives these examples.

Cera alba is beeswax.
CI 75470 is carmine, a red colour made from crushed insects.
Guanine, used for shimmer, comes from fish scales.
Collagen, used in many face creams, is a protein taken from cows.
Keratin often comes from animal hair, horns or feathers.
Glycerin and squalene can come from animals or from plants, so the source matters.

Looking for a mark

The Vegan Trademark started in 1990 and is renewed every year. The Vegan Society says its team checks each product and every ingredient against its standards. You can search its register of certified products online. When a product carries no mark, the brand is the place to ask.

Asking the brand

Every cosmetic product sold in Great Britain has a "Responsible Person", whose name and address are on the label. If a member of the public asks, they must provide the list of ingredients. They must also be able to prove any claims made when the product is marketed. A label must not suggest a product has qualities it does not have.