With our busy lives we hardly have enough time to think about where all of our products or clothes come from, but by turning a blind eye, what injustices are we supporting? The injustice I’m talking about is animal cruelty.
In the United States alone over 65,000 dogs, 22,000 cats 105,000 primates, 170,000 rabbits, and over 1 million mice are tortured in animal testing and inevitably killed every year. You would think that with all of that testing they could accurately predict the effect of a product on humans. Whether it’s death from a medication or their eyelashes falling out because of a faulty mascara, millions have seen the negative effects of animal tested products.

In 2004 Vioxx, an arthritis drug found safe in animal studies, was taken off the market after causing more than 60,000 human deaths. So why do we test? As if the statistics aren’t scary enough, how can we as a compassionate population of people put other living beings through as much torture and pain as we do?

Fortunately enough, some brands do care and they offer products you can feel good about using. Now just because these companies don’t test on animals, it doesn’t mean the products haven’t been tested out. Some of these companies use higher end technology or even human volunteers. But how do these products compare to animal tested products? After I switched over to cruelty free alternatives I did notice something, the products worked so much better; my face, which was breaking out badly, had cleared up almost completely. My hair was
feeling better than it ever had before, and my new cruelty-free vitamins were causing my hair to grow at twice the rate, not to mention they didn’t break the bank. The best part was that I knew what I supported. It only takes a few choices. A few small choices to effect such a big change.