Product Testing

Animal Experimentation - Living on Borrowed Time

Cosmetics and cleaning products are still tested on animals by dripping chemicals into rabbits’ eyes and smearing them onto the mucous membranes of guinea pigs. Despite the availability of advanced skin and eye tests, several of the largest companies continue to test on animals the way they have done for decades.

Product testing is an area where the word “alternative” is almost a parody. Of course there are alternatives – modern cell cultures and other technological methods can be used to test potentially dangerous ingredients in cosmetics and soap. But an obvious alternative is simply not to use unknown and potentially dangerous substances, but instead to use only natural ingredients and ingredients already known to be safe.

Indeed, why is it necessary to have dangerous substances in floor soap or skin cream? For thousands of years, people have used natural, safe substances for cleaning – something many ethically oriented companies continue to do today. These companies supply a wide range of environmentally friendly products without testing them on a single animal. But the big users of animal testing in the industry haven’t yet come up with a cleaning product strong enough to clean away the guilt they bear for the millions of lives they have taken.

See NOAH’s advert against cosmetic testing, and our list of which cosmetics are tested on animals, and which aren’t, on our anti-testing website www.kosmetikk.info (in Norwegian only).