L'Oreal donates $1.2million to help abolish animal testing but welfare groups say the company should stop the practice NOW

Cruelty-free: Cosmetic giant L'Oreal has donated $1.2million to an EPA program that will investigate the safety of chemicals without the need for animal testing

Hannah Rand (2012) reported that L'Oreal has taken a step further to stopping the testing of their beauty and fragrance products on live animals. The company has donated $1.2million to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help improve the testing of safe chemicals. The move will lessen the amount of experiments that need to be done on animals – potentially even making the emotive practice obsolete. Chemical testing is more expensive than experiments on animals, which is why only a handful of cosmetic companies go completely 'cruelty-free'. And, as a result, there are potentially many chemicals on the market not being used that may already be completely safe, EPA official David Dix told NY Daily News. The money will be used to fund EPA testing of a system called ToxCast, which according to the EPA is the most up-to-date method.

Reference

Rand, H. (2012) ‘L'Oreal donates $1.2million to help abolish animal testing but welfare groups say the company should stop the practice NOW’, Dailymail, 15 March, Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2115572/LOreal-donates-1-2million-help-abolish-animal-testing-welfare-groups-say-company-stop-practice-NOW.html (Accessed: 30 January, 2014)