Here we will find answer to your question Is La Roche-Posay Cruelty-Free?
Cosmetic brands are competing to provide the best products with the finest ingredients so that they can claim the most effective and efficient results. They want to be different with their groundbreaking, innovative products. This may lead to exploring untested ingredients that possibly have higher effects or faster results, and that’s where conflicts may arise.
As untested ingredients have a high possibility of being harmful to human skin, brands will have to run tests on an organism that has the most similar genetic conditions to humans, which are animals. Nowadays, our society has been aware of the damage it may cause to the animals and thus choose to switch to “cruelty-free” brands. They are those who claim that there is no animal testing in the process of making, and La Roche-Posay is one of them.
However, being a cruelty-free brand is not just about not testing ingredients on animals. Other than that, brands who dare to make such a claim must entirely ban cruelty in any of their related products, through any kind of process. For some reasons below, La Roche-Posay is not entirely cruelty-free.
La Roche-Posay’s Distribution to China
While La Roche-Posay may claim that they are not testing their products on animals, or paying third parties to do such tests, there still lies a possible exception. Their animal testing policy goes,
“La Roche-Posay does not test any of its products or any of its ingredients on animals, anywhere in the world nor does La Roche-Posay delegate this task to others. The only possible exception is if regulatory authorities required it for safety or regulatory purposes.”
The problem is, China is now the only country that still requires animal testing for cosmetic products. Although they did make a change on their animal testing policy, where “general cosmetics” such as shampoo, body wash, lipstick, lotion, and makeup can be sold in the country without further tests on animals, the new regulation still requires other products that are not listed to be tested to prevent harmful ingredients. This may include products with new ingredients, products for infants and children, skincare products, or products that are already under the supervision of authorized parties.
La Roche-Posay distributes its products to mainland China as we can look it up on their website on www.larocheposay.com.cn. This means a lot to their cruelty-free claim because any brands that wish their products to be sold and distributed in mainland China have to agree on paying the authorities to perform animal testing on their products. And for this reason, only, we can say that La Roche-Posay is not exactly cruelty-free.
L’Oreal as La Roche-Posay’s Parent Brand
The fact that La Roche-Posay is listed as one of the French brand L’Oreal’s daughter companies also conflicts with La Roche-Posay’s claim of being a cruelty-free brand, and here is why.
L’Oreal explicitly states that they are against animal testing. On their company website, under the Our Commitments section, they affirmed that they have stopped testing on animals since 30 years ago, a long time before it became the law. They have found an alternative and proposed a new, ground-breaking method of testing which is called Episkin, where they use human cells to mimic real skin. So that should be good, right?
However, there is a twist in the statement paragraph and a fact that may conflict with their claim. They did not deny that other health authorities may regardless run animal testing themselves for certain cosmetic products, like China for example. Moreover, the fact that up until today, they still haven’t stopped distributing their products to mainland China is proof that they are still supporting animal testing by giving consent to pay the authorities to run animal testing.
Conclusion
La Roche-Posay does not conduct animal tests for the ingredients they discovered and used for their products, nor do they delegate such tasks to other third parties. That should be a relief, at least. However, to claim themselves as a cruelty-free brand may incite arguments as, during the process of the distribution, there is still animal testing along the way. We can only hope for a country like China, where the market is massive, can modify its regulations to completely ban animal testing for any kind of product in the long run.
FAQs
- Does it mean that I cannot use La Roche-Posay products anymore?
This article never intends to completely stop you from La Roche-Posay products. The existence of this writing solely aims to provide the facts behind the cruelty-free claim by La Roche-Posay. The decision to use or not use their products is entirely up to the customers.
- How can I know if my personal care products are cruelty-free or not?
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