How come the box says 'Not tested on animals' then? The Unjustifiable. Pt 2

There are a number of ways around this for the more or less unscrupulous manufacturer. The final product may not be tested on animals but the ingredients used within may be, either by the final manufacturer themselves or by the suppliers they buy from. Another favourite is 'We don't test on animals' may well mean just that,'We pay other people to do it for us', if it's out-sourced a company has a perfect legal right to make the former claim. The simpler version of this is that the supplier of raw ingredients has either tested those ingredients on animals, or may have a general policy of testing.

The really sticky one is 'rolling' verses 'fixed' cut off date. The first means a company will not use any ingredient or product that has been tested on animals within the last x number of years from the current date. This has no real impact on the practice ceasing in the long term. A fixed cut off date means that a company pledges to not "conduct or commission animal tests for any of its finished products, ingredients or formulations after a fixed date". The theory being this will, in the long term, reduce and eradicate the practice. You generally have to look really hard to find what a company's policy on this one is. The wording of this still leaves more wriggle room than I'm happy with, but they've presumably dumbed it down for the website.

And last but not least, The Body Shop clause, we have an ethical policy but the people who own us don't.


The Unjustifiable. Pt 1
How come the box says 'Not tested on animals' then? The Unjustifiable. Pt 2
Who knows what they're talking about, and who should I listen to? The Unjustifiable. Pt 3
The bottom line - Who's OK? The Unjustifiable. Pt 4