Naturewatch Foundation
Naturewatch Foundation - Advancing Animal Welfare
Many of us are used to buying cosmetics and cleaning products that are cruelty-free. But did you know, there are lots of other everyday products lurking in our homes that contain substances that could have been tested on animals?
Think about paint, varnish, grout, wallpaper paste. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a single decorating product on the high street that you can be confident is cruelty-free. Let’s change that.
We’ve launched our new Paint With Kindness, Not Cruelty campaign to makeover the home improvement industry’s values and we need you! Will you help end animal testing by doing three quick things:
1. Sign the petition to strengthen the UK’s household product testing ban
The UK ‘banned’ testing household products on animals in 2015, but the ban only really applies to
certain finished products. Loopholes mean ingredients can still be tested on animals in certain circumstances. Plus the ban doesn’t prohibit the sale of household products tested on animals elsewhere in the world within the UK. Support our calls for a proper ban without loopholes.
Sign the petition
2. Tell decorating brands to go cruelty-free
It was compassionate shoppers just like you who made the cosmetics and personal care industry change its ways by demanding cruelty-free products. You can use your purchasing power to change the home improvement industry, too. Use our template email to encourage decorating brands to go cruelty-free and join Naturewatch Foundations’ Compassionate Shopping Guide.
Go to template
3. Learn more about why this matters
Knowledge is power. Read on to find out more about why the current household product ban isn’t strong enough, what kinds of cruel tests animals endure and the scale of the problem.
What is wrong with the 2015 household product testing ban?
Back in 2015, the coalition government introduced a ban on testing household products on animals. This was an exciting step forward in principle but, in reality, the ban has lots of loopholes and has been widely criticised.
What the ban did do is prohibit testing finished household products on animals in the UK. This means companies can’t test end products, like paints, cleaning products or adhesives, on animals. But there is no ban on selling finished products that have been tested on animals elsewhere in the world within the UK. And certain products commonly used in the home and garden – like disinfectants and weed killers – aren’t included.
Plus, when it comes to ingredients, the rules are full of loopholes and pretty confusing. We won’t go into them here as you can read more in the ban itself. However, the effect of these rules is that ingredients that end up in household products can still be tested on animals in certain circumstances and, unless companies that use those ingredients in their products are transparent about that, there’s really no way of knowing.
This is why we’re calling for the household product ban to be strengthened so that we can all live in completely cruelty-free homes.
Sign the petition
What kinds of tests are carried out on animals?
When it comes to assessing the safety of chemical substances, a standard set of tests are used to see how they could affect human health and the environment. These typically involve
exposing mice, rats, rabbits and fish to substances in various ways, such as putting the substance directly into their eyes or on their skin or forcing them to ingest or inhale the substance, sometimes for weeks on end, to observe the effects.
Of course, we all want the products we use to be safe but do we really want to inflict suffering on innocent animals in the process? Read more on our Household Products page.
How many tests are being carried out to test ingredients that go into household products?
It’s really difficult to know. The government publishes figures each year revealing how many animal tests have been carried out on ingredients that will be used “primarily” (e.g. more than 50%) in household products. Thankfully, in 2022, no tests were carried out on these kinds of ingredients.
However, the government doesn’t report on ingredients that are used primarily in other product types, but that also make their way into household products and thousands of chemical safety tests are carried out on animals in the UK each year.
It’s shocking to think there could be products in our cupboards that contain ingredients that have been tested on animals. That’s why we need a proper household product testing ban and for household product companies to embrace being cruelty-free.
Together, we can make it happen. Sign the petition today and urge decorating brands to join our Compassionate Shopping Guide using our template email.
Visit our Animal Experiments pages on our website to find out more.
The post Support our campaign and let’s make UK homes cruelty-free! first appeared on Naturewatch Foundation and is written by Morwenna.