Veganism vs. Cruelty-Free Products: What is the difference?
If a product claims to be both cruelty-free and vegan, it means that this product wasn’t tested on animals and that it contains no animal products, by-products, cruelty-free, or animal-derived ingredients in it.
JASON HUGHES: It is a common misconception that the term veganism and cruelty-free are synonymous… Unfortunately, there aren’t legal definitions for the terms ‘cruelty-free’ and ‘vegan’. At least, not in the US. So a brand could be lying to you by telling you that their product is either vegan, cruelty-free, or both… But there are several factors that differentiate both the terms from each other…
Cruelty-free refers to any product that hasn’t been tested on animals, so no animals are supposedly harmed in the process; that’s the theoretical definition. The FDA (the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) states to this day that there is no official regulation for the terms ‘cruelty-free’ or even ‘tested on animals’…
Animal testing kills around 25 million animals a year. Most of the animals are used in medical tests, the rest are used for testing of products related to skincare or makeup… In fact, in the U.S., researchers are estimated to kill over 100 million animals a year during animal testing.
That’s a shocking number, and unfortunately, a lot of countries still allow animal testing. These experiments hurt animals and kill them most often, and around 10% of the animals are not even given any painkillers or anesthesia while being tested on…
Veganism is usually a lifestyle, which means so much more than just not eating animal products such as meat or fish or any animal by-products such as dairy or honey. Anything that comes from an animal or comes from an animal source will be a no-go for a vegan diet…
This means that if you follow veganism you won’t buy clothes that have any animal trace in them, and that you will adhere to vegan skincare and makeup, and so much more. It’s a set of ethics in which you don’t want to profit from animals or their by-products…
The difference between cruelty-free and vegan products is that the cruelty-free label on a product will imply that no animal was supposedly harmed, while vegan products include any products that don’t have animal traces, animal by-products, or animal-derived ingredients in them…
A product can be cruelty-free but not vegan… For example, take a look at lipsticks. Some of them are cruelty-free since some brands won’t do animal testing because of their ethical choices or country regulations. For example, Lush doesn’t do any animal testing and stands up against animal cruelty. However, some lipsticks can contain animal-derived ingredients or animal by-products, such as beeswax (which comes from bees), lanolin (which is wool wax from sheep), or carmine (which is made from bugs)…
Also, a product can be vegan since it uses no animal ingredients, animal-derived ingredients, or animal by-products, but some vegan products are still tested on animals, unfortunately. So a product can be vegan but not be cruelty-free… For example, l’Oréal has vegan products, but this brand is notoriously famous for doing animal testing, even if they say they don’t do that anymore. Since this brand sells its product in China, they have to perform animal testing for their products which is what Chinese law requires
Finally, a product can… be both cruelty-free and vegan. If a product claims to be both cruelty-free and vegan, it means that this product wasn’t tested on animals and that it contains no animal products, by-products, cruelty-free, or animal-derived ingredients in it. For example, a face cream can be cruelty-free and vegan, and a vegan meat-replacement product can be both.
If you want to make sure that a product is both cruelty-free and vegan, you just have to check its label. The label will tell you all the information you need to know… A lot of animal-rights organizations and environmentalists are trying to fight this system and create a legal definition for these terms. There are four organizations that are trying to regulate those terms and will actually accredit companies that respect their standards.
For example, the Leaping Bunny Program accredits different products that are, in fact, cruelty-free. You probably saw their logo before, which is literally a leaping bunny. So this can help you tell if a product is cruelty-free. Same goes for vegan and vegetarian products, which have the recognizable ‘V’ logo, with a leaf, in a yellow circle. That’s the European V-label, but there are other labels that can tell you if a product is vegan and/or vegetarian…
The only way to tell if your product is cruelty-free is by checking if the product has an official bunny cruelty-free logo. There are three types of bunnies, and the organizations behind them are doing amazing work regulating cruelty-free products and making sure they’re actually cruelty-free. PETA, Cruelty-Free International, and the Leaping Bunny Program have three easy spottable cruelty-free logos all over the world.
So if you trust the organizations that certify if a product is cruelty-free or not, you will know if a product is cruelty-free really easily. If they’re not a part of these three main organizations, you should do a lot of research to make sure that your product is, in fact, cruelty-free. SOURCE…
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