~ Tender beauty ~

Ciel is wearing:

~ Smokey eyeliner

~ Romance Novel Eyeshadow

~ Medium Tasting Eyeshadow

~ Everyday Bronzers

(All products by Everyday Minerals)

Lola is wearing:

~ N o t h i n g 

Growing up with animals, I can not picture my life living without them. Six months ago I started reading books and other information about rabbits, particularly about a certain breed with long hair, called ‘Teddy Widder’. I got mine - her name is Lola - when she was 7 weeks old and after spending lots of time with her and being very very patient with her, she really trusts me and wants to be petted all the time. She loves to cuddle and sometimes follows me like a little doggie and loves to sit at my feet!

She is kept indoors, as she is very clean and toillet trained. I adore spending time with her.Looking at my happy baby running through the house, I started wondering at some point, how many animals do still suffer in laboratories. I did some research and found out that it’s a very complicated question, because records are not kept for all animals. The estimated number of animals tortured and killed annually vary widely but are definitely in the millions.Can you actually imagine that?

These animals are being poisoned, blinded, and killed every year in outdated product tests for cosmetics and personal care products. These tests involve general toxicity, eye and skin irritancy and phototoxicity (toxicity triggered by ultraviolet light). 

Fortunately, scientists have developed sophisticated product tests that are faster, cheaper, and far more accurate than blinding and poisoning tests. Instead of measuring how long it took a chemical to burn away the cornea of a rabbit’s eye, manufacturers can now drop that chemical onto donated human corneas. Human skin cultures are being grown and ordered for irritancy testing. These and dozens more tests now in use today are cheaper, faster, and more accurate at predicting human reactions to a product than the old animal tests ever were. Although more than 1,000 companies have banned all animal tests forever, some corporations still force substances into animals’ stomachs and drip chemicals into rabbits’ eyes.

Cosmetics testing, however controversial, is still conducted in the U.S. These companies that continue to blind and poison animals do so simply because they have always done so and don’t have the vision to try a new and better way. But let’s be honest here, who would want to buy and use the products of a company whose executives are more interested in “winning” against a consumer campaign than in sparing animals miserable, caged lives and agonizing deaths? I think most people agree that smearing hair color into a rabbit’s eye and pumping shampoo into a guinea pig’s stomach is idiotic. Blinding bunnies for beauty?

The good news is that it is banned in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK, and in 2002, after 13 years of discussion, the European Union (EU) agreed to phase in a near-total ban on the sale of animal-tested cosmetics throughout the EU from 2009, and to ban all cosmetics-related animal testing. 

Unfortunately, there is no quick fix for this problem, but there are so many things we can all do to help. I would like to thank Ivy for this opportunity to write as a guest on her blog. I hope this will make people aware of what’s going on the cosmetics industries. None of this will make animal abuse and cruelty disappear tomorrow, but every little bit helps lower the risk further down the road.

And you know what; you don't have to be an animal "fanatic" to do it. You don't have to be a member of every animal rights organization on earth. There are so many things you can do that will have an impact...

~ Take care of the animals you have, and encourage others to do the same.

~ Avoid anything made of real fur.

~ Be a caring consumer because by purchasing only cruelty-free products, you can help save rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, rats, and other animals (http://search.caringconsumer.com/)

~ Join PETA’s Action Center and you will be able to send out automatic e-mail responses to action alerts and legislative matters.
 ~ Perhaps you can even have a Meatless Monday; join this international campaign that encourages people to not eat meat on Mondays to improve their health and the health of the planet.

But most important: Do the best you can!

Love,
Ciel 

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