Hi Jana!

My main concern with the whole vegan issue is that they had already changed their written stance on animal testing, and on the same page were talking about offering vegan products. They definitely offer fewer vegan products than they used to. It’s clear that it’s not a main concern of theirs.

In the end, it’s just good that they changed their mind and are not going to test on animals!

Hi Joana!

I agree. I think that, no matter what, it’s good that they changed their mind. Fingers crossed that it stays this way! 🙂

You’re very welcome! Thank YOU for Tweeting at me about this!

I agree that it’s good that Urban Decay decided to not sell in China. At the end of the day, the deciding that testing on animals (no matter what their reason) is a positive thing.

Hi Karen!

I stopped buying Urban Decay products a while ago. They started to switch over vegan formulas to non-vegan formulas. They lost me as a customer at that point. However, I think that their flip flopping on vegan forumlas combined with them flip flopping on their stance on testing on animals is more than enough to make me not trust them in the future.

I’d love to hear of some other brands that you would like to hear more about! 🙂

Hi!

I can completely understand where you are coming from. However, this blog focuses on being animal friendly and not human rights. While I do agree that those are things I don’t necessarily want to support, it’s not the focus of this blog. This blog is about providing people with information about cruelty free and vegan cosmetics and other beauty items.

Also, please note that there is a difference between “Made in China” and “Sold in China”. Products that are simply made in China are not tested on animals. It’s only products that are sold there that are required to be tested on animals. Many truly cruelty free brands manufacture their products in China but don’t sell them there, so they are never tested on animals. I wrote a post about this a few weeks ago – http://logicalharmony.net/animal-testing-and-china/

What I guess I am confused about is why do you review products– like Wet and Wild– that are made in China? What about the horrible working conditions of the people there and promoting the export of American jobs overseas? And that fact that China requires animal testing?

Wouldn’t not buying or using cosmetics made in China send China a message about its working conditions and testing requirements?

Just a disconnect that has been bugging me for a while…..

Ibby

But maybe that’s giving them too much credit!

But either way, I’m really excited that this change happened. It really does show that consumers have power!

Hi Jesse!

Thanks for your comments. 🙂 I agree that it’s hard for them to hold themselves to the standards that I have for vegan. It just shocked me that they were trying to still come across as an animal friendly after just announcing their plans to start testing on animals! It felt like they were using it as a way to say, “See! We’re not that bad!”

I don’t mind if brands don’t call themselves vegan, but if they are going to market things with a label that says “vegan” then they should at least be completely cruelty free. Otherwise, it just seems like a complete PR move and a moot point that they have products that don’t contain animal ingredients.

I appreciate them being up front about their actions regardless, even their decision to sell in China. It’s a transparency that a lot of companies, such as MAC, have not had and I respect it. I just hope they decided not to sell in China for the right reasons and won’t change their mind later down the line.

I think a lot of people see vegan as an “ingredients only” endeavor – right down to food-only vegans who won’t examine anything else they consume/wear/etc so I can understand how their definition wouldn’t be as inclusive as we’d like.

There are so many other brands on this site who don’t necessarily identify anything as vegan who are getting lip service so it’s hard to hold UD to this one-up standard because they were trying to partially cater to a vegan market but weren’t doing it quite right in this case.

I do give them credit for being transparent (enough) about their actions and for changing their actions. Which is another reason I have for still supporting them. I fully understand why some people would no longer want to support them – but I do feel like the flip side to that is making sure their good deed goes unpunished.

All that said, I”m curious as to what their true reason was for pulling out of the Chinese market. Hopefully their statement was at least 70% transparent.