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Valeria Reyes

English 1302-213

Judith McCann

8 March 2022

Essay 2- Animal Testing on Cosmetics

It is sad how the society in this world does not care for the animals. In fact, many animals

are used for cruel things such as scientific experiments that could risk their lives. One debatable

topic researchers have different opinions and beliefs about whether animal testing on cosmetics

is harmful or beneficial. Some think that there are more ways how they could test cosmetics

without hurting animals. As a matter of fact, many researchers think that testing on animals is

morally incorrect, it can be harmful to the animal’s health, and avoiding animal testing on

cosmetics helps improve marketing in one way or another. Other researchers think that animal

testing is beneficial because it can help human health without risking it, they try to take care of

animals without harming them, and sometimes it could be beneficial to the animals. This

research analysis presents the existing research that reports both the benefits of animal testing,

such as helping the human health without risk and the detriments, such as the negative effects on

the animal’s health, as well as the increase in sales for brands that sell cosmetics that are not

animal-tested.

Animal Testing on Cosmetics is immoral and Bad for Animal’s Health

To begin with, Many scientists believe that animal testing could be cruel. As a matter of

fact, animal testing on cosmetics has happened over years. According to the charts from the

article “Effect of Various Microorganisms Found in Cosmetics On the Normal and Injured Eye
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of The Rabbit” it mentions that rabbits have been used for many experiments since the year

1973(Chowchuvech et al. 1007).(Chowchuvech et al. 1006). This means that back then scientists

would harm animals by doing random experiments on them. In other words, it is astonishing how

back then people did not care if animals were put at risk. As mentioned in the article’s diagram,

rabbits were put in different types of experiments that would risk their lives and they did not

have any precautions with them (Chowchuvech et al. 1007). It is sad how back then scientists

would not care for those rabbits and that made about 90% of them be contaminated by the

experiments they decided to make on rabbits (Chowchuvech et al. 1007). In fact, since the

scientists were testing different chemicals on the rabbits’ eyes one of them got infected. This

means, that the scientist did not even know what exactly they were applying to the rabbits which

affected one of the rabbit’s health. According to the article it had a diagram where it mentioned

that one of the rabbits died because of an experiment they made on that animal (Chowchuvech et

al. 1007). This also demonstrates during the year 1973 scientists would not know what kind of

experiment they were going to make on rabbits if they were going to affect their lives or not. On

the other hand, Nowadays human beings are more aware of how animal testing on cosmetics is

very harmful. As a matter of fact, according to the article “Alternative (non-animal) methods for

cosmetics testing: current status and future prospects- 2010” stated the EU Cosmetics prohibits

placing cosmetics that are tested on animals on the European market after the year 2013 (Alder et

al. 367). This means that other countries are being more aware of how testing cosmetics on

animals can be really inhumane. In fact, there are some allternative methods that are non-animal

tested. These alternative methods are helpful because they determine the toxicity of cosmetics

which helps the researchers identify what products are toxic. One of the alternative methods is
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the read-across method. According to the article “Safety assessment of cosmetics by read-across

applied to metabolomics data of in vitro skin and liver models,” it mentioned that the read-cross

method was one of the safest assessments that could be used instead of using animal testing. In

fact, it also mentioned that this method is mainly used to check the toxicity of the products.

(Jacques et al. 3304). This means that when doing the read-cross method it helps the scientist

understand which cosmetic could be toxic for the human and which one is good for them.

Cosmetics increase in sales.

According to the article “Not tested on animals ': How consumers react to cruelty-free

cosmetics proposed by manufacturers and retailers? Stated that many people prefer to buy

products that mention that it is “cruelty-free” and that it is not tested on animals (Grappe et al. 2).

This means that many consumers prefer to buy products that do not harm any animals. Since

they felt that some animals were losing their lives due to experiments the scientists would do to

test cosmetics on animals. Consumers would also feel guilty because they thought that they were

supporting animal testing by buying cosmetics that were tested on animals. That is why some

people decided to start buying products and cosmetics that were not animal tested. As a matter of

fact, the consumers that prefer buying products that were not animal tested were mostly

eco-friendly and that is why they tried to take care of the animals (Grappe et al. 5). These

eco-friendly people would also try to support animal rights and would have a positive attitude

towards products that were not animal tested. Since they thought that animals are a fundamental

element on this earth, they wanted to take care of them. Another reason why consumers would

try to buy cosmetics that were not tested on animals is that each of them had different beliefs and

they thought it was morally incorrect. This means that some people would think that testing on
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cosmetics animals was like killing the animals which made them think that it was something

harmful nobody should do that is why they decided to avoid buying these products. As a matter

of fact, some people decided to engage more in the rights of the animals by trying to fight animal

testing on cosmetics. Doing, this would make consumers look very responsible and aware of the

products they were buying. This would also make them look as if they were taking care of the

earth in one way or another by taking care of more of the animals. In fact, According to the

article, about 63.2% of consumers decide to buy cosmetics that are not tested on animals. This

means that other people who decided to fight for animal rights made others also be against

animal testing and decided to buy products that are not animal tested. This also means that there

are many countries that decided to do something about animal testing and decided to banned

animal testing on cosmetics. Banning the test of cosmetics on animals is a great way of taking

care of animals because they are not supporting animal abuse.

In addition, According to the article, about 84% of the people in the United States pay

more attention to better living conditions for animals ( Grappe et al. 1). One of the articles

mentioned that the United States also decided to ban cosmetic testing on animals. Furthermore,

an article mentioned that in many countries there might be some public policies brands and

consumers have to follow. In fact, in the year 2013, the European Union decided to ban animal

testing on cosmetics. Another thing that was banned in the European Union was the use of

“claims and logos that referred to the absence of thereof” (Grappe et al. 1). According to the

Article some people might be socially influenced by others when they buy products. What this

means is that usually, people tend to buy other products if their family or friends buy them. This

could be helpful when it comes to buying non- animal-tested products or cosmetics because there
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could be more people supporting animal rights and that avoids animal abuse. In fact, if more

people support non- animal-tested products they could ban animal testing in every country which

could benefit the animals in one way or another.

Helps out humans’ health

Moreover, Animal testing on cosmetics can help human beings in one way or another. A

great example of this can be that it could help out improve humans’ health without putting them

at risk. For instance, sometimes scientists have to test certain products on animals just to make

sure they would not affect humans. One of the Articles, mentions how scientists first decide to

test a certain chemical on animals rather than on humans to see the reaction of the animals. An

article also mentioned that sometimes it is a good idea to test cosmetics on animals, but only if

suffering is minimized when scientists are working with animals. The article stated that

sometimes animal testing on cosmetics can be beneficial for scientists because they can figure

out things that can help out human health (Kabane and Baddel 1). In fact, the article “Bioethics:

a look at animal testing in medicine and cosmetics in the UK” stated that many scientists say that

there have been many important medical breakthroughs that have been possible to make only on

animals which could benefit human beings in one way or another (Kabane and Baddel 2). As a

matter of fact, there was a study where 38% of the participants thought that testing cosmetics on

animals was necessary (Kabane and Baddel 4). These respondents thought that using animals to

test cosmetics was the best option because it would not risk any person’s life. This 38% of

respondents also thought it was a good idea because that would let the scientists know which

cosmetics are good to use and which ones are toxic for people. That is why sometimes scientists
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believe that animal tests can help them find out if a certain product is effective or not effective

for people.

In conclusion, animal testing on cosmetics has been a pretty debatable topic over the

years that might have its pros and cons. As mentioned before, animal testing on cosmetics can

affect the animals' health in one way or another. As a matter of fact, it can also be immoral to use

animals to try to make experiments with them that can risk their life. On the opposite side,

Animal testing is beneficial to people because they don’t put their lives at risk.
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Works 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

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_Durif.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

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.p

df
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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.com.tamiu.idm.oclc.org/doi/pdf/10.1080/10937404.2021.1907264?needA

ccess=true

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

vol. 31, no. 2. pp 105-109, 1993.https://doi.org/10.1016/0278-6915(93)90122-F