If you know me, then you know that I love makeup. I’ve been really into makeup for about five years now, and in those five years, I’ve managed to accumulate a pretty big collection of it. I never really thought about cosmetic brands testing on animals until I watched a YouTube video that mentioned L’Oreal used animal testing. I was totally shocked and vowed hat I would never buy another product from L’Oreal. But beyond that initial discovery, I didn't really do any research.

Recently, I discovered a YouTuber by the name of Kristen Leanne. On her channel, she has a video talking about her transition to cruelty-free cosmetics. Being an animal lover, I was interested to see what she had to say. I was shocked to find out that many brands that I love still test on animals. After hearing everything that Kristen had to say, I have decided to follower her lead and I am making to transition to using only cruelty-free brands.

Luckily, there are many great brands out there that do not rely on animal testing, so I believe the transition will be an easy one. Another issue that Kristen brings up on her channel is that there are many brands that are cruelty-free, but are owned by parent companies that are not. The way she justifies this is, “every dollar is a vote.” She states that when you spend your money on a brand that is cruelty-free, that sends a message to their parent company. When they evaluate which brands are making the most money, if they see that their cruelty-free brands are doing better than their brands that test on animals, that tells them that they are doing something wrong. When they sit down and think about ways to cater to more people, they are going to want the cruelty-free audience to be buying their products, and will make the necessary changes to reach that demographic.

The drugstore has more brands that test on animals than the high-end brands, but there are plenty of affordable brands that are high quality and cruelty-free. Many of the big name brands (i.e. MAC cosmetics, L’Oreal, Maybelline) still test on animals, but brands like NYX cosmetics, Urban Decay, and Kat Von D are 100% cruelty-free!

One way that you can check to see which of your favorite brands are cruelty-free is to check out PETA’s list of cruelty-free brands. However, PETA has not updated their list in a long time and still lists certain brands as animal-testers, so make sure to find a second source as well. If you don’t feel like searching through PETA’s website, I found a master list of 101 brands (including both high-end and affordable brands) that are cruelty-free on Cruelty-Free Kitty.

It’s 2017, so there is no reason that brands still need to be relying on animal testing to test their products. There are many other, more accurate, methods that do not require testing on animals. It’s time that we start holding brands to a higher standard.