If there’s one thing all vegans can relate to, it’s that familiar and tiresome routine of being lectured to almost daily on the litany of ridiculous reasons as to why people should be eating meat. “Why do you think we have these sharp canines, huh!?”
The pro-meat/anti-vegan debates rage on in heated comment threads on Facebook and over tense family dinner tables, usually in spite of what scientific evidence and rational thinking suggest. Long-term activists know that these arguments are rarely to be won and that the ensuing migraine renders these exchanges best to be avoided altogether.
On the other hand, you will be hard-pressed to find a meat-eater – or, anyone, in fact – who insists that they ‘will only buy cosmetics that have been tested on animals’. In fact, conscious consumerism is on the rise, and even people who aren’t vegan seem to agree that when it comes to beauty products, animal testing is unnecessary, archaic and cruel.
The beauty industry
Beauty brands have started paying attention, too. COVERGIRL recently announced its cruelty-free certification by Leaping Bunny. The brand pulled all products from China, where animal testing on cosmetics is required. Herbal Essences from Proctor & Gamble has recently been certified as cruelty-free by PETA US.
That said, the beauty industry has a long way to go before cruelty-free makeup and beauty products are the norm. As many conscious consumers know all too well, shopping cruelty-free can still be frustrating, complicated and laborious even for those of us who are committed and well-researched.
That’s why we founded Kinder Beauty, an all-vegan and cruelty-free beauty subscription box, to demystify the process of cruelty-free shopping and to help guide fellow conscious consumers on their journey. In short, we are here to bridge the gap between ethics and cosmetics.
The Carrot, not the stick
While there is an urgent need for the type of activism that showcases the suffering of animals and rebukes consumers for making poor choices, at Kinder Beauty we practice a different type of activism, one that espouses the benefits and abundance that come from simply choosing to live a life free from animal exploitation. As ethical vegans who embraced this lifestyle for our love of animals, we’ve both seen our lives enhanced through making cruelty-free choices. In short, we believe that when you make good choices and do good things, you tend to feel…good!
In that way, we believe that through beauty products we can encourage people to think and care about animals by showing how beautiful, exciting and fun a conscious, vegan, cruelty-free lifestyle can be.
Indeed, beauty and kindness may ultimately be two of the best tools the vegan community can employ to appeal to and attract a wider audience. It’s a style of activism that we fondly like to refer to as Attractivism!
2019, The Year Kindness Goes Mainstream
By making cruelty-free and vegan beauty products accessible, affordable and chic, Kinder Beauty is normalizing conscious consumerism for a mainstream crowd.
At the same time, and especially as our community of ‘Kinder Beauties’ grows, we’re sending a resounding message to the beauty industry: Business as usual is no longer a sustainable option.There’s great power in a united front, and so we’re asking for your help. Let’s commit together to making 2019 the year we, as a community, are heard.
If we can all urge just one person we know to make the transition to a cruelty-free beauty routine – with or without Kinder Beauty’s help – this is a battle we will win. There’s nothing beautiful about products tested on animals, it’s an outdated and oxymoronic practice; beauty and cruelty just don’t mix. What is beautiful, however, is being kinder – to the animals, the planet, each other and ourselves.
Plant Based News has teamed up with Kinder Beauty to give away three beauty boxes – as well as offer all readers a discount code. You can find out how to enter via Instagram