Cosmetics and Household Product Testing

Tuesday, 02, Dec 2008 05:17

Despite laws which will see its abolition within the next decade, animal testing of ingredients of cosmetic products still continues in the European Union. And while Britain has effectively banned such tests here, licences continue to be issued by the Home Office every year for the testing of household products. The BUAV campaigns on the consumer and the political level to end these utterly unjustifiable uses of animals.

Cosmetics Testing

The UK Government announced that it would no longer issue licences for animal testing of cosmetics products and their ingredients in 1998. While this move was largely symbolic as almost no such testing was performed in the UK at that time, it was nevertheless a welcome step (and one, incidentally, referred to by the Prime Minister when itemising the achievements of his tenure in his Labour Party Conference speech in 2006). A far more substantive step was taken by the European Union when in 2003 it passed the 7th Amendment to the Cosmetics Directive which introduced not just a ban on the testing of cosmetics ingredients but a ban on the sale of animal-tested cosmetics in the European Union. The ban is due to be introduced partially in 2009 and should be fully implemented in 2013 (there are certain possible exemptions which may postpone this date). The BUAV is among the many European organisations who lobbied for the 7th Amendment which was undoubtedly a historic milestone in the campaign against animal testing.

Before the amendment comes into force, however, cosmetics containing animal-tested ingredients remain on sale on every British high street – many bought by consumers believing that such testing has been ended. For this reason, the BUAV campaigns to alert consumers to the continued use of animal testing in the cosmetics industry.

In particular, the BUAV runs the Humane Cosmetics Standard, an accreditation scheme for manufacturers of cosmetics and toiletries which holds them to strict standards on animal testing. The scheme audits accredited companies to ensure they are compliant with its key policies: that they neither conduct nor commission animal tests on their products and that they use only ingredients which have not been tested on animals, according to the fixed cut-off date principle (FCOD). The FCOD is widely regarded as the “gold standard” on animal testing and requires companies to use no ingredients tested on animals by their suppliers after the date they select. The FCOD recognises the reality that almost all chemical ingredients have been tested on animals at some point but by ensuring that suppliers know that any new testing will prevent the sale of their products to the finished product manufacturer, it prevents further animal testing and drives it from the industry.

The Humane Cosmetics Standard and its “leaping bunny” logo is a guarantee to consumers that an approved company complies with the highest standards on animal testing and gives the shopper the power to prevent further testing. A full list of approved UK companies can be found here.

The scheme also operates in other European countries and across the US.

Household Product Testing

The continued testing of household products on animals exposes the scandalously permissive attitude to animal experimentation that still exists in government. It is claimed that licences for animal experiments are only issued where such research is essential and cannot be undertaken in any other way. In particular, by law each animal experiment is supposed to be subjected to a “cost-benefit” analysis before approval, balancing the harm to the animal against the benefits to be derived from the procedure. This analysis supposedly lies at the heart of UK legislation – yet loopholes in the definition of “benefit” permit the Home Office to continue to licence household product testing despite the imperceptible value to society of such products.

Unsurprisingly, a ban on the testing of household products on animals would be supported by 81% of the public (BUAV poll, 2006) and BUAV is campaigning for exactly such a ban. Actual numbers of tests are small (measured in hundreds of animals most years) and the government could introduce such a ban by refusing to issue licences for such procedures, in exactly the same way as they ended cosmetics testing in the UK. For more details of the BUAV’s work in this area, see our main site or contact Parliamentary Officer Dave Powell on 0207 619 6970.

In addition to our campaign seeking an end to household product testing, the BUAV also promotes the Humane Household Products Standard, which applies the same principles to household products as the Humane Cosmetics Standard described above. Like the HCS, the HHPS is an audited scheme that allows consumers to buy household products with confidence that they are not supporting animal testing. A full list of HHPS companies is available here