VEGAN AND VEGETARIAN BEAUTY

FIND OUT WHAT MAKES OUR PRODUCTS 100% VEGETARIAN.

We’re proud to have been campaigning against animal testing in cosmetics for decades. These days, we get lots of questions about whether our products are vegan or vegetarian. Discover what makes a beauty product vegetarian, and why over half our products are now vegan.

Anita Roddick holding Against Animal Testing plackard

WE’RE FOREVER AGAINST ANIMAL TESTING

Animal welfare has always been extremely important to us. We’ve been campaigning against animal testing in cosmetics for over 30 years, and were the first global cosmetics company to fight this cruelty. Together with our friends at Cruelty Free International, we helped contribute to a European Union ban on animal testing in cosmetics, and in 2018 our Forever Against Animal Testing petition collected 8 million signatures – which we presented to the United Nations to lobby for a worldwide ban. We take cruelty to animals seriously, and this includes the ingredients we put in our products.

WHAT IS A VEGETARIAN BEAUTY PRODUCT?

Vegetarian-friendly beauty products are free of any animal-derived ingredients obtained as a result of intended death to animals. These can include animal-derived ingredients that do not involve intended death to animals, like honey and beeswax.

WHAT IS A VEGAN BEAUTY PRODUCT?

Vegan beauty products don’t contain any animal-derived ingredients whatsoever.

Shop vegan range

WHY AREN'T ALL OUR PRODUCTS VEGAN?

Around half our products are vegan. In the other half, we might use honey or beeswax, which are known for their brilliant cosmetic benefits. We also use these ingredients because they’re wild-harvested and sustainably sourced by expert farmers and producers who really know their stuff.

A very small number of our products use lanolin, which is oil extracted from sheep’s wool. Since we’re moving towards making more vegan products, we’ve stopped using lanolin in all new products, and we’re removing it from our existing products, too. Some of our products also contain ambrettolide, which may contain the resin of a lac bug.

Since we’re moving towards making more vegan products, we’ve stopped adding honey and beeswax to all our new products, and are removing them from existing products, too. We are working intensively with both Ethiopian and Cameroonian suppliers on a soft-landing exit strategy to mitigate the negative effects of loss of trade at the local level.