It has been more than a year since I decided to go cruelty-free with my beauty products. It all started after reading an article about how animal testing are often done by beauty brands. Testing cosmetic products on animals started in 1983, when the United States Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act was signed requiring some safety substantiation of cosmetic products. It eventually led me to searching for brands that are cruelty-free or against animal-testing.


I found Cruelty-Free Kitty's website, which had a list of all the cruelty-free makeup and skincare brands as well as brands that are not cruelty-free and brands that haven't disclosed their stand. I bookmarked the earlier list and during my first few months, only chose to buy from those brands. The transition personally wasn't a difficult process since most of the cruelty-free brands were brands that I already love. But I had to purchase most of them online since the brands found in our town are mostly not cruelty-free. I continued using the "non-cruelty-free" beauty products that I have already purchase (before the transition) but I kept a mental note not to buy from those brands anymore.


I get really excited when I discover a cruelty-free beauty brand. However, early this year I have decided to go plastic-free or sustainable and this has also changed my purchase habits with beauty products. In fact, ever since going sustainable, I haven't bought a makeup product. I have decided to finish every single beauty product I own and purchase one when I don't have any in my collection. I had half a dozen of bronzers, blushes, foundations, and two dozen of lipsticks. I don't need that much, right? I only bought skincare products from sustainable/eco-conscious brands to replace skincare products that I ran out of. Furthermore, to help the environment, I have stopped purchasing beauty products online and bought locally-made, cruelty-free products.

I am from the Philippines, and the sustainable cruelty-free beauty brands I have been loving are Human Nature, Apotheke and Aromacology. And I am still in the look out for other local brands to love.