Do you fancy using Shark’s liver oil as a lip balm, deodorant as your moisturiser, crushed bugs in your in your hair from your hairspray?? or how about how about some dead fish scales on your face/body with your eye-shadow, highlighter, bronzer, blusher or sparkly nail polish??? … I hear you say “No, thank you!!”
Too late! You’re probably already wearing all the above.
If you’re like most people now, conscious of what goes into your food and cosmetics; carefully scanning the ingredients on the product label; You think that because it says “cruelty free” it’s not tested on animals and you think you have a clear conscience..…. Cruelty free does mean it’s not tested on animals, however it does not mean there are no animal derivatives in your products!
Read on (if you dare) and see which animal/insect derivative is in your make up! Common listed ingredients and what they actually are-
- Cochineal Dye – Oh the beautiful colour of red lipstick! This dye is made from boiling cochineal beetles in ammonia or sodium carbonate solution, then crushed and the intense red dye is produced.
- Guanine – The crystalline material that gives the magical pretty shimmers found in your nail polishes, blushers, eye shadows and mascara…Guanine is crushed dead fish scales!
- Tallow – Found in foundation, lipstick and eye shadows. It is animal carcasses boiled until a fatty substance is produced.
- Gelatin – Pretty much like Tallow, gelatine is boiled skin, tendons, ligaments and bones of animals… found in nail treatments and creamy cosmetics.
- Lanolin – This nasty ingredient is the excretion from animal fur. For example; a sheep, it’s big fluffy wool, all the greasy substance that has accumulated in the woolly locks over a year. all the sweat, the dirt… then collected into a jar and added to your lipstick, shampoo, lotions and shaving creams. Nice!
- Squalene – What a lovely word! Have a guess at what this is… a substance extracted from the livers of sharks!! Found in your lipsticks, deodorant and eye makeup… yummy!
- Ambergris – Almost sounds like a character from Harry Potter….. If that character was a whale!! To be specific… Ambergris is the waxy oil that lines a whale’s stomach, is in the bile duct in the intestines and can be found washed up on coastlines and in dead sperm whales, it is used to stabilise perfumes. EW!
- Estrogen – The delightful urine from pregnant horses. Yes, you read that correctly! Urine from pregnant horses. Still fancy using that restorative cream or lotion on you now??
- Shellac – Shellac is crushed female lac bugs. The secretion is used as a brush on colourant, food glaze, mascara, eyeliner and in some nail polishes Fancy a bug glaze now?
The list goes on and on, read and research what ingredients are in your products. we have given you a few to remember but there are so many more. Just because an ingredient has a fancy ‘scientific’ name or one that sound ok, it doesn’t mean it is ok; we should all be more aware of what we are putting on and in our bodies.
Here at The Beauty Box, we care about what goes into your products and on your bodies, that’s why we carefully select our suppliers and work with them to make sure all products are made to the highest spec and are vegan, cruelty-free and eco friendly.
