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1. What does Vegan beauty mean & why is it important? As vegan beauty becomes popular, this question becomes increasingly important. Holistic vegan beauty entails 3 different aspects specifically in the beauty industry: – No animal by-products – No animal testing – No unethical ingredients or sourcing of ingredients Animal by-products are used rampantly in the beauty industry as ingredients; if you pick up products from your dressing table, you’re bound to find some. Stearic acid, used most often in lotions, moisturisers, and face creams is derived from animal tallow (fat) and animal proteins which are very popular and well accepted in the cosmetic industry for their faster results.
Animal testing is a concept we’ve all been exposed to for a while now, and it is as straight forward as its name. As consumers, we must understand the reason this is done. The chemical formulations used in products we use every day are so harsh that a product made for humans is not tested on humans, but animals? Try and stop to think about that, what are they making these products with and why are we allowing these chemicals into our body? Ethical sourcing of ingredients is something that has been recently welcomed with open arms into the vegan world because extensive research is finally being done on this.
2. Are vegan products cruelty-free? Cruelty free only identifies if the product has been tested on animals or not, but as mentioned above, a vegan product must check a lot of other boxes. It should not be an animal by-product, nor should it be unethically sourced. 3. Is vegan beauty the same as clean beauty? Is it the same as organic beauty? They are each complementary aspects of creating a product that is organic and vegan. Clean beauty is a term used to define products that do not use known harmful chemicals. Today the known harmful chemicals are PPD, Sulphates, Phthalates. Whereas, organic beauty also entails products whose ingredients do not use the above chemicals, but also do not contain synthetic or artificial ingredients.
4. What on the ingredients label indicates that the product is vegan? There are a few certifications available which are represented by a logo or icon on the product. Apart from this, look out for the most obvious non-vegan ingredients like milk, gelatine (pig or cow bones, tendons, ligaments), squalene (shark liver oil), carmine (crushed beetles used red pigment), beeswax, and so on. Most of our Naanis’ and Moms’ beauty nuskhe are actually all vegan! And that’s the golden truth for the centuries-old haldi-besan face pack or a multani mitti face pack which is the ultimate proof of veganism in ancient beauty rituals.
5. There are a lot of brands which use different certifications for their products. What are some of the certificates that truly matter? Every vegan certification is here to do the same job, which is to eliminate doubt. But internationally there are some very renowned ones like Vegan Society, Leaping Bunny, and PETA (cruelty free and vegan). For organic certifications, ECOCert is the one to look for; our product went through this certification, they are extremely strict and thorough.
The Channel 46