If there’s one beauty area that’s on the rise and will continue to be so during 2019 is vegan cosmetics – shampoos, make up and skin care. Properly defined, ‘vegan’ cosmetics means products that don’t contain any animal or animal derived ingredients. There’s a whole list of animal derived ingredients that aren’t immediately obvious so you need to become a rigorous list checker if you’re following the vegan route. Things to look out for include beeswax, honey, lanolin, collagen, albumen, carmine, cholesterol, gelatin, shellac, glycerin (often comes from animal fats but not always), squaline, oleic acid, steric acid and keratin – to name a few! Confusingly, the vegan alternatives often have the same name as the animal derived ingredients so you do have to get down to it and contact brands to discover their sources. If a product isn’t labelled vegan, you will need to check.
The other thing to add to the general ‘hard-to-be-vegan’ list is that often products ARE vegan but don’t label as such. A good case in point is Superdrug products – this brand has so many vegan beauty products – including men’s, and yet doesn’t actually flag it up to make choosing easy. All of the pictured products are vegan – I’m a big fan of the B range for giving great quality at affordable prices – but you wouldn’t know at first sight. If you go on the Superdrug website however and type in Vegan, a whole list of products (mainly Makeup Revolution, Superdrug own brand and B) pops up but if you’re in store there is no such guide. Superdrug, you need a Vegan Personal Care app. Something that vegans can refer to whenever they’re in a store that instantly tells them via a QR code or similar if a product is vegan or not. Or a list, or even a symbol like the Leaping Bunny. Just something to make it easier.
When trends emerge, the beauty industry will almost instantly slap a trend tariff on it – paying more for vegan is something winkling its way through – but you don’t really need to. Superdrug doesn’t tariff their own vegan products as far as I can see, keeping them in the thoroughly affordable range whatever your lifestyle choice.
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