Global campaign to end cosmetic testing on animals

• National Protest Tuesday 24.04.12
• Testing products on sentient animals purely for the sake of human vanity is outrageous and extremely unethical

Choose Cruelty Free and Humane Research Australia have joined forces with Humane Society International and Lush Cosmetics to launch the Australian arm of the largest-ever global campaign to end animal testing for cosmetics.

The campaign, launched to coincide with World Week for Animals in Laboratories, is being rolled out simultaneously in forty-nine countries including New Zealand, the United States, Canada, India, Australia, South Korea and Russia.

Australians can mark their support by attending a Lush store at 12 noon on Tuesday 24th April and signing the petition and at the same time send a strong message to the Australian government that animal testing for cosmetics needs to be banned by law.

Troy Seidle, director of research & toxicology for Humane Society International, said: “Animal testing is the ugly secret of the beauty industry, and it’s time for it to stop. Thousands of animals such as rabbits and mice continue to endure chemical poisoning tests just to produce new lipsticks and shampoos, and that’s simply unacceptable in a modern society.”

In the EU animal testing of cosmetics is already banned and a sales ban is due to be implemented in March 2013. Outside the EU animal testing for cosmetics continues and is even a legal requirement in some countries.

Lush and Humane Society International are working together in countries across the globe to ban both cosmetics animal testing and the sale of cosmetics tested on animals. Choose Cruelty Free and Humane Research Australia are joining HSI’s global Be Cruelty-Free campaign to call for such a ban in Australia.

Choose Cruelty Free Director, Liz Jackson said: “Choose Cruelty Free has been pressuring the Australian Government, for a number of years, to introduce legislation to prohibit the sale of cosmetics tested on animals. By working with Lush, Humane Research Australia and HSI on this campaign, we hope to bring this dream into reality.”

Humane Research Australia’s CEO Helen Marston comments: “Testing products on sentient animals purely for the sake of human vanity is outrageous and extremely unethical. It is a form of animal exploitation that should have been prohibited decades ago, yet consumers continue to be hoodwinked by the cosmetic companies’ claims of eternal youth. It’s imperative that we bring an end to this cruel practice NOW – to the testing of personal products on animals and to the sale of those products in Australia, particularly when we consider the wide range of cruelty-free cosmetics already available here.”

Megan Taylor, PR and Marketing Manager at Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics, said: “Animals should be protected by robust laws which force ALL companies to adopt humane methods to bring their products to market."

Lush, Choose Cruelty Free, Humane Research and Humane Society International believe that testing on animals to produce new cosmetic products or ingredients is morally and scientifically unjustified. Animals are subjected to considerable pain and distress during toxicity tests; even pregnant animals are used and their unborn babies chemically poisoned.

Animal toxicity tests are also scientifically unreliable for assuring human safety because animals and humans can respond very differently to the same chemicals. Cosmetics can easily be produced without animal testing by using the thousands of existing ingredients for which safety data is already available and advanced non-animal testing methods such as 3D human skin models, test-tube cell tests and computer models.

• Humane Society International (HSI) and its partner organisations together constitute one of the world's largest animal protection organisations — backed by 11 million people.

• Lush has been awarded the RSPCA Good Business Award for 2006 and 2007, the 2006 PETA Trailblazer Award for Animal Welfare and the International Fund for Animal Welfare ‘Business of the Year’ award for 2010.

• Co-founders Mark and Mo Constantine were awarded OBEs for services to the beauty industry in the New Year’s honours list 2010.

• Lush currently has over 800 shops worldwide and are present in over 50 countries, with manufacturing sites across the world.

• Lush operates a strict policy against animal testing and supports Fair Trade and Community Trade initiatives.