The Vegan Society's Vegan Trademark has teamed up with ingredient testing lab ADSL to offer animal-free alternative to safety tests for cosmetic products
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The Vegan Society’s Vegan Trademark has teamed up with product testing lab Advanced Development and Safety Laboratories (ADSL) to offer an animal-free vegan alternative to safety tests for cosmetic products.
In recent years, there has been greater concern and awareness of animal testing. Whilst testing cosmetic products on animals in the UK is restricted, many alternative methods unfortunately aren’t strictly animal-free as they are likely to contain animal matter.
Vegan Trademark is working to change that and has announced it will be working with ADSL to offer a vegan alternative to these testing methods.
Cosmetic testing methods
The current UK regulations state that in order for a cosmetic product such as lipstick, deodorant, or perfume to be available to customers, a variety of information about its ingredients must be put together to ensure the product is safe for use.
Additionally, certain products must be tested at a more thorough level to ensure they can stop and kill the growth of bacteria, yeast, and mould after contamination.
The most common methods for this test use culture media – a specific mixture of nutrients and other substances including animal derivatives. However, ADSL, which specialises in ingredient technology in skincare, have successfully created a vegan-friendly system replacing the animal parts for plants such as soybean digests.
This means those same cosmetic products can go through the same in-depth testing process as before – but with the total absence of animal products.
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“Kinder and cruelty-free alternative”
In a statement to Vegan Food and Living, Jake Robinson, a Microbiologist at ADSL, shared: “We couldn’t be more excited to be working with The Vegan Society.
“ADSL see this as the start of a journey that will not only significantly reduce the use of animal products in tests in future, but hopefully help vegan brands and businesses that have been searching but struggling to find a kinder and cruelty-free alternative.”
Animal-testing crackdown
Over the years, consumer concern over animal testing and demand for vegan and cruelty-free beauty products has dramatically increased, and rightfully so!
On the same day as the Vegan Society announced its latest vegan testing venture, high street beauty brand The Body Shop announced its plan to be fully vegan by 2023. The beauty brand’s cosmetic products will be certified by The Vegan Society, making it the first global beauty brand to receive this prestigious accreditation.
Additionally, in February, Liverpool-based animal-free testing lab XCellR8 secured £100,000 in funding for a study into completely vegan-friendly testing.
It is so encouraging to see companies investing in innovative research and moving away from animal testing. We hope this has a butterfly effect across laboratories all over the globe and can secure an animal-free testing future.
Want to care for your skin the vegan way? Here’s the ultimate guide to vegan skincare.
