Beauty Packaging Staff12.04.20
PETA, Cruelty Free Europe, and more than 450 companies, brands, and animal protection organizations—including Dove, Simple, and The Body Shop—have sent an open letter to the European Parliament, European Commission, and European Council urging legislators to uphold the EU Cosmetics Regulation’s animal testing and marketing bans and not allow cosmetics ingredients to be tested on animals under any circumstances.
An Attempt to Weaken The Cosmetics Regulation
The Cosmetics Regulation is under threat, and PETA is stepping up to protect it. Since 2009, tests on animals for cosmetics ingredients have been banned in the EU under the Cosmetics Regulation. Likewise, cosmetics products and ingredients that rely on the results of animal tests conducted after 2013 for safety-assessment purposes cannot be sold in the EU.
Despite these regulations, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), supported by the European Commission and the ECHA Board of Appeal, is demanding new tests on animals for cosmetics ingredients under the guise of the REACH chemicals regulation.
In the last five years alone, tests requiring the use of over 10,000 animals have been mandated. This completely circumvents the purpose of the Cosmetics Regulation—which is to bring cosmetics safely to market without requiring tests on animals—and puts animals back in laboratories.
Furthermore, the European Commission is also working on plans that could further weaken the Cosmetics Regulation and see a reversal of the hard-won protections for animals it contains. This would result in the suffering of many more animals in cruel, pointless cosmetics tests and severely limit the availability of products and ingredients marketed within the cruelty-free sector.
The letter to EU authorities blasts them for undermining the Cosmetics Regulation and condemning thousands of animals—including rats and rabbits, some of whom are pregnant—to suffer in tests in which they are force-fed a cosmetics ingredient before being killed and dissected.
An Attempt to Weaken The Cosmetics Regulation
The Cosmetics Regulation is under threat, and PETA is stepping up to protect it. Since 2009, tests on animals for cosmetics ingredients have been banned in the EU under the Cosmetics Regulation. Likewise, cosmetics products and ingredients that rely on the results of animal tests conducted after 2013 for safety-assessment purposes cannot be sold in the EU.
Despite these regulations, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), supported by the European Commission and the ECHA Board of Appeal, is demanding new tests on animals for cosmetics ingredients under the guise of the REACH chemicals regulation.
In the last five years alone, tests requiring the use of over 10,000 animals have been mandated. This completely circumvents the purpose of the Cosmetics Regulation—which is to bring cosmetics safely to market without requiring tests on animals—and puts animals back in laboratories.
Furthermore, the European Commission is also working on plans that could further weaken the Cosmetics Regulation and see a reversal of the hard-won protections for animals it contains. This would result in the suffering of many more animals in cruel, pointless cosmetics tests and severely limit the availability of products and ingredients marketed within the cruelty-free sector.
The letter to EU authorities blasts them for undermining the Cosmetics Regulation and condemning thousands of animals—including rats and rabbits, some of whom are pregnant—to suffer in tests in which they are force-fed a cosmetics ingredient before being killed and dissected.
