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My thoughts on animal testing and the 2013 LUSH campaign

The ironic thing is that if it was a beagle in the window and we were doing all these things to it, we’d have the police and RSPCA here in minutes. But somewhere in the world, this kind of thing is happening to an animal every few seconds on average. The difference is, it’s normally hidden. We need to remind people it is still going on.

R E P O S T

LUSH launched a very hard hitting campaign against animal cruelty in the cosmetics industry earlier this year with a demonstration in the shop window of the Regents Street store.  What many of us were asking though is why? Especially when the UK banned animal testing in 1998 and the EU followed in 2004. I get that some countries still test on animals and some even say that it’s mandatory (China) before the products are fit for human use but why were LUSH campaigning against the UK cosmetics industry when they’re technically the front runners in the fight against animal testing and cruelty?  The problem was the selling of animal tested products.

What I’m asking really is this…. what is your take on animal testing and the way LUSH has gone about their campaign? Did you think it was what was needed considering all of us bloggers with an interest in makeup are sure to have used products that were tested on animals? (See list here of known companies that have/do use animal testing, it may surprise you).

I just don’t know.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend recently about it and the discussion came around to the horse meat ‘scandal’ in 2013. There are many people that consumed meat containing traces of horse for years and didn’t know any different. They enjoyed the products and didn’t even think about how the product got from the animal to their plate. Is it the same with most people and cosmetics? If we don’t see and we don’t hear about animal testing , does it bother us?

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people never think about animal testing until they’re confronted with it. For this reason, I thought the live demonstration element of the campaign was really successful. Sometimes people just need the visual before they can really understand the problem. If it had been a rabbit or a dog being used in such a way and then discarded at the end, Tasmin Osmond is right, animal services would have had a LOT to say about it. I just wonder whether the campaign was widespread enough to leave lasting impressions?

**The Bath Cafe – Natural Skin Care have recently written an interesting post on the proposals to make animal testing mandatory in the USA. Check out their thoughts here.

The video mentioned – If you’re squeamish, I wouldn’t watch this. Even though it is just a piece of drama, it is quite painful. There’s something awfully ‘Clockwork Orange’ about it.

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