As hard as it is to believe, some personal care and cleaning product companies still conduct cruel, unnecessary experiments on animals.
Huge multiproduct manufacturers, including Unilever, SC Johnson and Johnson & Johnson, driven by a fear of lawsuits (though animal tests have not proved effective in a company's defense when a consumer sues) and, inexplicably, frozen by inertia, continue to poison, burn, and blind animals in tests.
Their reluctance to change in the face of consumer demand and superior non-animal test methods is difficult to understand, but one company CEO once told PETA that companies that continue to blind and poison animals do so simply because they have always done so and don't have the vision to try a new and better way.
This reluctance to change is especially unforgivable considering the current wide availability of superior non-animal tests. Instead of measuring how long it takes a chemical to burn away the cornea of a rabbit's eye, manufacturers can now drop that chemical onto donated human corneas. Human skin cultures can be grown and ordered for irritancy testing. These and dozens more tests now in use today are cheaper, faster, and more accurate at predicting human reactions to a product than the old animal tests ever were.
The best way to stop companies from using animals is to refuse to purchase their products and to write and tell them why you won't be applying their eye shadow, cleaning your clothes with their detergent, or washing your child's hair with their shampoo.
The good news is that today there is a multitude of cruelty-free cosmetics and household products that are not tested on animals. With companies such as Urban Decay able to meet all your cosmetics needs and Method able to provide all your household needs (just to name a few), you can find cruelty-free products just about anywhere. Check out PETA's database of companies that don’t test on animals and request our Cruelty-Free Shopping Guide to find cruelty-free versions of all the products you could ever need.