Hopping mad

MEGAN MCEVOY-WARR, Environmental journalist. I remember the first time I heard of animal testing in the cosmetics industry. It was nine years ago. “Legally Blonde 2” was released and Elle was campaigning to ban the unnecessary practice. Ever since then, I’ve researched the actual tests carried out, watched videos and have made the effort to buy cruelty free cosmetics. Little did I realise that even though the finished products were not tested on animals, the raw ingredients were. During the past decade, governments did ban animal testing. A great success (or so everyone thought). The era of REACH (the registration evaluation and authorization of chemicals) came looming in from the EU. REACH now states that all chemicals will be screened, evaluated and tested for their safety. Many of these tests will be on animals.  Lush’s attitude on the matter is "the best way of seeing if something is safe or not is for it to have had a long history of safe use". This is how Lush works. unfortunately REACH is changing this and not for the better. Take Lush's bath ballistics for example; their two main ingredients are sodium bicarbonate and citric acid. Two well established safe chemicals that people use every day, yet REACH somehow feels it necessary to test them on animals? Lush is well known for it's cruelty free cosmetics and campaigns. In 2006, they  sent all the cards to the relevant MEPs, along with a letter and a little bag of chocolate-covered raisins with a Lush tag reading "45,000,000 animals are sh**ting themselves over REACH". This in-your-face approach worked as dozens of MEPs wrote back, saying that they would vote for REACH legislation only if they use safe and effective non-animal tests. Animal tests for cosmetics are not specifically required by law: to market a product a company must demonstrate its safety, but this can be done by using approved non-animal tests and combinations of existing ingredients that have already been established as safe for human use. One of the obvious ones would be using ingredients that a have long history of safe use. Secondly, companies can use non-animal tests where new data need to be generated. There have been over forty non-animal tests that have been validated for use, that are more relevant to people and cheaper to carry out. Advanced skin tests are available, that use human reconstructed skin, and are far more effective than that of the outdated animal tests. These include EPISKIN and EpiDerm. It doesn’t make sense not to avail of these modern, cruelty free tests when the current tests are so barbaric. The current methods can include skin and eye irritation tests where chemicals are rubbed onto the shaved skin or dripped into the eyes of rabbits. Lush’s embodied ethics is one reason that they stand out as a company and it’s one of the many reasons that I love working for such a company that use their stores as a means to communicate a whole range of issues which wouldn't be possible without the involvement and engagement of customers. Our bags state our beliefs as a store, one of which is that “the customer is always right” so I hope that you do the right thing and sign our petition to ban all testing on animals for the vain and needless purpose of cosmetic animal testing.  Thank you!