Alice Vol. 7 No. 2

The Truth About Beauty Brands:
Cruelty-Free or Cruelty-Full?
By Hannah Golden
Beauty products are one of the biggest
and most opportunistic categories of merchandise
that people can buy. From skincare, haircare and
makeup, there are so many brands to choose from
that knowing which brand to support can be a chore
in and of itself. Over the past few years, the term
“cruelty-free” has become one of the important
boxes that consumers want to check off when
looking to purchase because people do not want
animal cruelty on their conscience.
PETA, the animal advocacy organization,
defines cruelty-free as any product or ingredient
that was not tested on animals. Brands can also
gain a “Leaping Bunny” certification as a way to
distinguish that they have cruelty-free products.
Leaping Bunny is an organization of eight national
programs that banded together to make a universal
logo that distinguishes cruelty-free brands from
non-cruelty-free brands so that consumers know
what products they are buying.
Due to the growing popularity that
brands would gain by being certified cruelty-free,
many of them have cut corners to gain this status
and therefore gain more customers as people are
becoming more aware of where their products come
from and what they are made of. Cutting corners to
gain popularity is not a new concept, but it can put
people at risk for the sake of a better bottom line.
Cruelty to animals is viewed as unthinkable and evil,
but cruelty to people is something that occurs every
day and no one says a word about it, so brands can
get away with something much worse than testing
on animals.
Most beauty brands are divided by their
price points. KVD Vegan Beauty, a very famous and
successful prestige brand, was started by Kat Von
D when she wanted products that contained clean
and vegan ingredients. The brand was born in a
tattoo studio that Von D was employed at, which
is why their famous “tattoo liner” is so long-lasting
and extremely pigmented as it’s meant to mimic a
tattoo. In 2018, Kat Von D, however, was the subject
of backlash from the public after posting a picture
on Instagram of their Lock-It Concealer in front of a
cotton field with the caption, “Let Lock-It Concealer
do all of the hard work for you with instant one-coat
coverage.” The caption may seem innocent, but the
post as a whole was found to be extremely offensive
as it depicted a cotton field- a nod to slavery.
The brand took the post down but never
issued a formal apology for the incident. KVD was
also under scrutiny when they came out with a
shade of liquid lipstick called “Underage Red.” This
shade name gained attention because it refers to the
sexualization of minors and Von D stated that she is
the “sole creative force” behind her brand, pushing
her into the spotlight once more, and not in a good
way.
In addition to KVD, Kylie Costemics
sistently gaining traction among younger consumers
and recently rebranded and reformulated all of the
products to be certified cruelty-free. Kylie Cosmetics
was bashed when the brand first launched for not
being cruelty-free certified which led to the recent
rebranding and reformulating of products. Kylie
Jenner also has started Kylie Swim, Kylie Skin and
Kylie Baby, which are all controversial because of
the inconsistency found in the products that her
brands put out.
Kylie Cosmetics has been known to cause
breakouts and rashes in consumers because of the
heavy fragrance and harmful ingredients that go
into the products, according to stylecaster.com.
The brand has been accused of insensitivities
toward children with cleft palettes by comparing
them to monsters in a Halloween campaign with
Smile Trains, an organization that raises money for
financially struggling families with children that
need surgeries. The brand has also faced charges
of “sweatshop conditions” for factory workers. One
ex-employee even stated that she would become sick
after inhaling the particles all day with no protective
wear. Because of this, Kylie Cosmetics has faced a
lot of backlash from customers but continues to gain
popularity with a younger generation of consumers
that idolizes the Kardashian-Jenner family and as
social media influencers get paid to promote the
brand, making their reach far and wide.
Prestigious brands of skincare have had
their share of the spotlight, as well. Drunk Elephant
is a popular skincare brand that was founded by
Tiffany Masterson in her own kitchen because
she wanted skincare that was quick, easy and
effective. She built the brand’s popularity on the
concept of a ‘skincare smoothie’ where the products
could be combined for different effects and easier
use. Masterson sold her company to Shiseido, a
popular Japanese skincare brand, to expand where
Drunk Elephant products are sold and how many
products can be made, making the brand even more
accessible.
Drunk Elephant, however, has not avoided
the spotlight. According to The Cut, Drunk Elephant
used a fake account to bash Glossier, another beauty
brand, for using fragrance in their skincare products.
Fragrance is one of Drunk Elephant’s “sinister six,”
a concept they use to define the six worst ingredients
in a skincare product. Additionally, Drunk Elephant
has been accused of being racist towards BIPOC
(Black, Indigenous and People of Color) and using
offensive terms like “human inventory” to refer to
their staff and brand representatives. Not only is
the term “human inventory” a little off, but it is also
referring to people as objects which is offensive to
anyone.
In addition, Mackensey Haupt, a manager
at Ulta Beauty and a licensed esthetician, stated
that she had a personal interaction with the current
president of the company in which she asked a
question regarding the ingredients of a product on
a live stream and was immediately blocked.
She said,“brand reps are not properly
trained” by estheticians on products and how
ingredients work with different skin types, leading
to misinformation to customers.
Facing negative attention along with Drunk Elephant
is a prestigious skincare brand named Sunday Riley.
While the skincare brand has recently been growing
in popularity because of its good ingredients and
effective treatments, Sunday Riley had to make
false claims to get to the level of popularity they
are at now. According to The New York Times, the
brand has been accused of writing fake reviews on
Sephora’s website to make the products seem more
effective than they actually are. The reviews were
written by Sunday Riley employees and posted on
the Sephora website in order to boost sales.
The New York Times also provided
evidence of an email that the company’s CEO
and namesake, Sunday Riley, sent to one of her
employees that stated the employee should write
positive reviews and dislike negative ones so that the
negative reviews would be taken down, making only
the positive reviews visible and therefore boosting
sales. Rather than relying on the quality of products,
Riley thought it was better to falsify reviews to make
her products seem better than average. The brand
still continues to gain popularity because of the
good-for-you skincare ingredients, so why didn’t
Riley trust in her products in the first place? This
falsification of reviews leads consumers to believe
that there are other possible misdemeanors the
brand and Riley could be involved in, but there has
been no news of a large-scale scandal so far.
There have also been issues with the
quality of products that Sunday Riley has been
selling. One of the brand’s most popular products,
the Tidal Brightening Enzyme Water Cream, has
been returned to Ulta, not once, but twice, on claims
of mold growing in the product, and they were true.
I have personally encountered the product having
mold and the guest said it was “disgusting” and that
it “smelled terrible.” There have also been reviews
from a few different sites that say they received
faulty product so it is a recurring issue. Ulta had
the employees pull the Tidal Cream from the shelf
so that no more customers would be at risk, so
there is a possibility that Sunday Riley knows their
product is causing issues and will work to fix it, but
there has not been any indication that the process of
reformulation has started.
Beauty brands are constantly competing with each
other to gain popularity and boost sales to remain
on top which often comes at the expense of their
customers. While brands may not test on animals,
they may not be as completely cruelty-free as they
want the public to believe. There are often a lot of
behind-the-scenes acts that take place and put real
people at risk. Doing research before supporting
a beauty brand is vital because an uninformed
consumer might never know what kind of people
are running the show and what kind of damage they
have done to others.
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