Thank you for your inquiry. PETA campaigned against L’Oréal for some time because of the company’s use of animals for product testing. L’Oréal eventually declared that it had ended all animal tests and signed PETA’s Statement of Assurance in 1993.
Rumors later led us to question if L’Oréal had truly renounced animal testing. Because the company would not clarify this issue for us, we placed a notation on our published lists of companies that do not test on animals. Up until the fall of 2000, no documentation had come to light indicating that L’Oréal was conducting animal tests, so the company remained on our “Don’t Test” list (with a notation explaining the issue so that readers would be fully informed and could make their own decisions).
In November 2000, we received evidence that L’Oréal had requested animal-test data from an ingredient supplier for at least one ingredient. We also received information about statements made by L’Oréal in which the company confirmed only that it did not test finished products on animals—ingredient testing was not mentioned. It also came to our attention that Naturewatch, an animal rights group in England, had launched a campaign against L’Oréal based on the company’s presumed use of ingredients that had been tested on animals.
PETA has contacted L’Oréal multiple times about these matters, but we’ve never received a response. Although we do not have definitive evidence that L’Oréal is indeed using ingredients that have been tested on animals, the company’s silence—coupled with the documentation that we have received—lead us to believe that L’Oréal probably is not cruelty-free.
因此,在2000年,我們將L’Oreal及其子公司(Garnier, Lancome, Matrix Essentials, Maybelline, Ralph Lauren Frangrances, 與Redken)從我們的Cruelty-free名單上移除,並將他們放到「有動物實驗公司」的名單中,到目前為止都沒有改變。
As a result, we removed L’Oréal and its subsidiaries (including Garnier, Lancôme, Matrix Essentials, Maybelline, Ralph Lauren Fragrances, and Redken) from our cruelty-free list in 2000 and placed them on our “Do Test” list, where they have remained ever since.
Unfortunately, companies that have not eliminated animal tests are not necessarily forthcoming with consumers about their testing practices. If you receive a response from L’Oréal indicating that the company does not test its products on animals, we suggest that you write back to the company and specifically inquire about the testing policy for newly developed ingredients. L’Oréal’s current responses to this particular question usually contain the following statement, which indicates that the company has not completely eliminated the use of animal tests for ingredients:
“Concerning the ingredients, general regulations stipulate that safety for use in cosmetics or any other consumer product be assured by testing protocol, which may include in vivo testing. All cosmetics companies, without exception, manufacture their products with ingredients which must conform to these legal obligations.”
For cosmetics products, in vivo (animal) testing is not required by any “regulations”—any ingredient testing on animals that L’Oréal USA carries out or requests is completely voluntary.
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For more information about animal testing and what you can do to help animals who suffer in laboratories, please visit http://www.StopAnimalTests.com. To see our list of companies that do not test on animals, learn how to make your home more animal-friendly, or make a donation in support of PETA’s Caring Consumer campaign, please go to http://www.CaringConsumer.com.
Thank you for your compassion and for everything you do for animals. Please let us know if you have any other questions.