Being cruelty-free is super important to me as a person. I try very hard to manage the purchases that I make and I never buy anything that has tested on animals. I don't eat meat as of recently, but I encourage my meat eating boyfriend to buy farm raised organic meat rather than factory farm meat. I think it's extremely important to realize that all animals deserve to be treated kindly, not tested on and hurt every single day of their short lives for the sake of human consumption, and I believe that everyone should work hard to be cruelty-free.
When it comes to makeup, I absolutely love it. I wear makeup all the time, it's beautiful and fun. Lots of expensive and renowned brands like Mac test on animals, yet people still covet Mac and are constantly buying it, keeping it in business. I would recommend rethinking your choices if Mac is something you often buy, or other animal testing companies. The quality is not worth the cruelty. E.L.F is just as good and cruelty free. NYX, Wet n Wild...if you look hard enough you can find great quality makeup that can save you money and is cruelty-free. The lack of empathy or care at all is just heart breaking.
Hair products are the same way. I know it's a bit more expensive but I buy Paul Mitchell, because I know it's great quality and it's completely cruelty-free. Treseme and other cheaper brands are not cruelty-free. Usually it'll say so directly on the bottles if it's cruelty-free, and if not it takes very minimal effort to research. The few seconds it takes for you to check the bottle or research is worth knowing that you're helping to slowly but surely put cruelty out of business. Plus, it's healthy to change up shampoos and conditioners from time to time anyway.
The meat part is pretty self explanatory and I'm not someone who likes to get extremely preachy over vegetarianism. Though, if you do eat meat, trying hard to buy meat and dairy that's not part of the meat industry helps just that little bit as well.
I just wanted to write this because lately I've been feeling very strongly about this, as it starts to seem like less and less people care, it's important to help people remember. Some companies will never stop doing what they're doing, and companies have been run down from protests against animal-cruelty before so it can certainly happen again. It doesn't take extreme protests with picket signs and megaphones. It takes the conscious decision to choose the products that are cruelty-free.
Hopefully you'll think about that next time you're out to buy makeup or shampoo or anything else.
