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Valeria Reyes

English 1302- 213

Judith McCann

9 April 2022

Testing Cosmetics on Animals is inhumane

Testing Cosmetics on animals is something that shouldn’t be accepted in this world.

Using animals to make experiments could be very risky and could put their lives at risk. Many

researchers think that testing cosmetics on animals shouldn’t be accepted because sometimes

those products could be harmful. Instead, Researchers feel that scientists should try different

methods to test cosmetics without using animals. Animal testing should be banned in all

countries because the current tests are inhumane and put the animals’ lives at risk, there are

other, safer methods to test products, and customers are now starting to become more interested

in products that are cruelty-free.

Previous Methods of Testing Cosmetics on Animals

To begin with, using animals to test cosmetics has been one of the methods scientists

would use since the year 1973 (Chowchuvech et al. 1006). It is sad how people back then

wouldn’t care for animals' lives and instead, they would treat them really badly. The article

“Effect of Various Miccroganisms Found in Cosmetics On the Normal and Injured Eye of The

Rabbit” mentioned that scientists would get rabbits and would test them with different types of

experiments without taking any precautions. One of the first things the examiners decided to do

was to inject the rabbits with 10 ml of 0.1% peptone-water media (Chowchuvech et al. 1005).
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Many researchers questioned whether it was healthy for rabbits to get injected with peptone

water. They think that this experiment was very risky because the scientists did not know

whether the rabbits’ bodies were going to react in a good way or in a bad way. Researchers

believe that these examiners shouldn’t always inject animals with something they are not fully

sure it would be healthy for them because it might affect other parts of their bodies.

Another thing that was done in the experiment that was considered inhumane was when

the examiners decided to add four superficial 5 mm crisscrossing scratches to the right eye of the

rabbits (Chowchuvech et al. 1005). One of the reasons why this is considered unethical is

because these scientists are damaging the rabbit's eyes which could make them lose their right

eye. Another reason why this is considered bad for animals is because the article mentioned that

they did not even anesthetize the rabbit which means that the rabbit felt the pain while the

scratches were been made (Chowchuvech et al. 1005). This made the researchers think that the

examiners did not really care about the rabbits and instead they were risking every part of their

bodies by trying different things on them. They think that the examiners were not fully aware

that some rabbits could have passed away because of the pain. The last thing the scientist

decided to do after scratching the right eyes of the rabbits was to add two drops which equal to

0.1 ml of the material that was going to be tested to the right and intact left eye (Chowchuvech

et al. 1005). Researchers see this last step as something unacceptable because now both of the

rabbits’ eyes could get infected and they have the probability of getting blind because these

examiners could have damaged both of the rabbits' eyes. In fact, the article mentioned that a

rabbit’s eye got infected by testing contaminated cosmetics which demonstrates how careless

these scientists were when they decided to apply and do too many things to the rabbits’ eyes
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(Chowchuvech et al. 1004). The Article “Effect of Various Miccroganisms Found in Cosmetics

On the Normal and Injured Eye of The Rabbit” mentioned in one of the graphs that one rabbit

died because of one of the experiments the scientists tried on them (Chowchuvech et al. 1007).

This passed sentence just confirmed how unaware and incautious the examiners were with these

innocent rabbits. This also means that back then scientists would not take full precautions on

how they would test cosmetics on animals and therefore some of them would lose their lives.

The Safest Methods to Test Cosmetics

Furthermore, Using animals to test cosmetics can really put at risk their life since some of

the products could be very toxic. Instead, many scientists should try and focus on safety

assessments that don’t have to do with any animals. As a matter of fact, there are many ways in

which cosmetics can be tested. According to an article it mentioned that there are alternetive

methods that avoid the animal testing which can help the skin, eye irritation, and metabolism that

doesn’t harm any animals (Alder et al. 372). Researchers think that this is one of the best

methods to test cosmetics with out risking animals’ lives. For instance, the article mentioned

that in Europe they decided to test different methods using many chemicals (Jaques et al. 3304).

Researchers believe that these different type of methods is also one of the best ways to avoid the

animal testing which could benefit the earth by taking care more of the animals. According to the

article “Current opinion on risk assessment of cosmetics.” stated that sometimes many of the

ingredients that the cosmetics contained can be harmful for the animals (Kim et al. 137). Some

researchers believe that, that it is important that, examiners first check what cosmetics contain

before testing them on animals because they can be toxic for them. As a matter of fact, scientist

could try and evaluate safety chemicals by using non- animal experiments using information
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from human sources (Kim et al. 138). Another method that was mentioned in this article was the

“read- across”. Researchers find this method really effective because it could check the toxicity

of a chemical from the cosmetic without harming any animal. According to the article “Final

Report of the Cosmetic Ingredient Review Expert Panel on the Safety Assessment of

Polyisobutene and Hydrogenated Polyisobutene as Used in Cosmetics” it mentioned that there

are some assessments that can check how much “Polyisobutne and Hydrogenated” contain in the

cosmetics without using animal testing.

The Banning of Testing Cosmetics on Animals

Moreover, as time has passed some of the countries decided to ban the testing of cosmetics on

animals. In fact, one of the countries that decided to ban the testing of cosmetics on animals was

on the United Kingdom and other members of states from the European Union in the year 2013

(Kabane and Baddel 2). Researchers believe that United Kingdom and the other states tha are

located in the European Union decided to banned animal- testing on cosmetics because they

aware of all the damage it can cause to animals. On the other hand, according to the article

“Bioethics: a look at animal testing in medicine and cosmetics in the UK” mentioned that other

countries in the year 2010 like United States and China still test cosmetics on animals which is

really bad. Since it mentioned that about 50- 100 million animals are being tested on cosmetics

which is 1.37 million ( Stefane and Said 2). Researchers believe that the number of animals that

have been tested over the past years are a good amount of them which means that there are alot

of animals’ lives that are been exposed. As a matter of fact, according to the article “Bioethics: a

look at animal testing in medicine and cosmetics in the UK” it mentioned that human being are

finding animal testing on cosmetics as something intorable that no one should do not even for
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medical research (Kabane and Baddel 7). Since people believe that using animals to test on

cosmetics is something that is morally incorrect, they prefer all the countries to banned this to

protect the animals’ lives. The article also stated that people disapprove the animal testing on

cosmetics because they feel it is something cruel for the animals. Since animals are risking their

lives for humans, people believe that they are treated unfairly (Kabane and Baddel 2).

Researchers feel that testing cosmetics on animals should be banned because they feel that

nowadays it is not necessary to use animals to test cosmetics instead they can use other ways.

Consumer Interest in Cruelty-Free Cosmetics

In addition to this, avoiding testing cosmetics on animals could make more consumers

buy non- animal-tested cosmetics. The article “Not tested on animals”: How consumers react to

cruelty-free cosmetics proposed by manufacturers and retailers.” mentioned that consumers

prefer buying products that are “cruelty-free” which means that they are not tested on animals

(Grappe et al. 2). As a matter of fact, about 63.2% prefer to purchase cosmetics that are not

animal tested since these people think that testing cosmetics on animals is something inmoral

(Grappe et al. 11). This shows that the more products that are not animal tested, the more

consumers would buy products that are cruelty free which could help the earth. As a matter of

fact, the people who mostly prefer purchasing cosmetics products are mostly eco-friendly which

means that they like to take care of the animals (Grappe et al. 5). Eco-friendly people also try to

fight for animal rights and have a positivie attitude towards cosmetics that are not tested on

animals. Another reason, why some people prefer to purchase cosmetics that are not animal

tested is because they have different thoughts and beliefs towards animal testing and think that is

morally incorrect. In other words, consumers that think that animals should be treated correctly
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and should be respected they would most probably buy cruelty free cosmetics which will make

them look very carrying and aware of how animals are been treated. The article mentioned that

many brands decide to add claims and labels were they mentioned it is “cruelty-free” because

they want the consumer to feel emotionally better that they are purchasing something that did not

cause any harm to the animals (Grappe et al. 3). In fact, these brands do that because they want

to a positive brand image so that they could look animal-friendly and people could trust that the

products they are buying are not causing any harm (Grappe et al. 3). This means that brands try

to convenience consumers to buy their products or cosmetics by mentioning that they are are

cruelty- free. This article mentioned that people tend to purchase products others buy. In other

words, they feel that just because a friend or family member is buying a product or cosmetic that

is not animal tested they should also buy it.

In conclusion, It is astonishing how back then scientists would not care and would do

many experiments with animals that would affect them. As a matter of fact, Testing cosmetics on

animals could be harmful and could risk their lives. Instead, researchers and scientists should

find another type of method that does not have to do with animals. They should also try to avoid

all cosmetics that are animal tested in stores and all the countries. In other words, they should

start banning all of these cosmetics.

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Worked Cited

Adler, Sarah. et al. “Alternative (non-animal) methods for cosmetics testing: current status and

future prospects- 2010.” Arch Toxicol. 2011, pp. 367- 485.

https://link-springer-com.tamiu.idm.oclc.org/content/pdf/10.1007/s00204-011-0693-2.pdf

Chowchuvech, Endeliam et al. “Effect of various Microorganisms found in cosmetics on the

normal and injured eye of the rabbit.” American Journal of Ophthalmology. vol. 75, no.

6, 1973. pp.1004-1009. https://zh.booksc.eu/book/29667084/9501a4

“Final Report of the Cosmetic Ingredient Review Expert Panel on the Safety Assessment of

Polyisobutene and Hydrogenated Polyisobutene as Used in Cosmetics” Journal of

Toxicology and Environmental Health, 27. pp 83-106,

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/109158180802704s02

Grappe, Cindy et al. “Not tested on animals: How consumers react to cruelty- free cosmetics

proposed by manufacturers and retailers.” Hal open science, 2021, pp. 1-27.

https://hal-audencia.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03379593/file/Grappe_Lombart_Louis_Duri

f.pdf

Jacques, Carine et al. “Safety assessment of cosmetics by read across applied to metabolomics

data of in vitro skin and liver models.” Archives of Toxicology. pp 3304-

3322,https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00204-021-03136-7.pdf
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Kabene, Stefane, and Said Baadel. “Bioethics: a look at animal testing in medicine and cosmetics

in the UK.” Journal of Medical Ethics and History of medicine. vol.12, no. 15, 2019, pp.

1-11.https://wwncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7166243/pdf/JMEHM-12-15.pdf

Kim, Kyu-Bong et al. “Current opinion on risk assessment of cosmetics.” Journal of Toxicology

and Environmental Health, Part B. vol. 24, no. 4,

2021.https://www-tandfonline-com.tamiu.idm.oclc.org/doi/pdf/10.1080/10937404.2021.1

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Springer, J.A. et al. “Number of animals for sequential testing.” Food and Chemical Toxicology.

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