Change Comes As the Beauty Industry Acts to Prevent Sensitive Minks From Being Caged, Killed, and Skinned
For Immediate Release:
October 6, 2020
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
Los Angeles – After hearing from PETA, Dermstore—a Target-owned, online skin-care and beauty product retailer—stopped selling mink-fur eyelashes, as did Fashion Nova, Lurella Cosmetics, Coco Mink Lashes, and GladGirl. This significant fashion- and compassion-forward development follows beauty giant Sephora’s decision to sell only faux-fur eyelashes as well as false-eyelash manufacturer Velour’s commitment to no longer using mink fur.
“When it comes to cruelty, fur eyelashes are no different from a fur coat,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is celebrating these compassionate companies for joining Sephora, Velour, Tarte, Too Faced, Urban Decay, and the other beauty giants that don’t sell mink-fur eyelashes.”
As PETA pointed out in its letters to the beauty brands, mink fur typically comes from fur farms, where stressed minks frantically pace and circle endlessly inside cramped wire cages, often suffering from infections or broken or malformed legs. As a result of the intensive confinement, many frustrated minks gnaw on their own legs or tails. At the end of their miserable lives, they’re gassed or electrocuted or their necks are broken. After testing positive for COVID-19, more than a million minks were recently killed in Europe and thousands have died in Utah (though their skins will still be used). Some passed the virus to humans, showing that the industry is not only cruel but also a public health risk.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—is now calling on Lilly Lashes, a brand that Dermstore previously sold, to go fur-free.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
