What's the Difference Between Cruelty Free and Vegan?

What’s the Difference Between Cruelty Free and Vegan?

Recently some of the awesome people in the PhyrraNyx Facebook Group (click here to join) asked me to make a video on – What’s the Difference Between Cruelty Free and Vegan? So I created a super short video to discuss the differences. I talk about the vegan definition and the definition of cruelty free. I discuss how things can be vegan but not cruelty free, as well as how things can be cruelty free but not vegan.

To be clear, I support brands that are cruelty free even if their parent company is not cruelty free, especially if they are Leaping Bunny certified. Leaping Bunny is the most trusted resource for all things cruelty free.

My Trusted Sources

I email brands directly to find out their cruelty free status. I rely on Leaping Bunny, who spends a lot of time verifying brands are cruelty free. Finally, I email with Tashina from Logical Harmony, Jen from My Beauty Bunny and Emily from Haus of Hounds to discuss brands and their cruelty free status.

My Cruelty Free List

Ultimate Cruelty Free Brand List

Leaping Bunny has a brand new app that you can download for apple and android phones. Get the app here!

If you’re thinking about going cruelty free, see my Top 5 Tips to make the transition easy.

Shopping Guides

These shopping guides will make you an expert at cruelty free brands! You can save them to your phone or Pinterest.

What’s the Difference Between Cruelty Free and Vegan? Video

In short, for a product to be truly vegan, it needs to contain no animal products or animal by-products, as well as be cruelty free. Some vegans may consider a product to be vegan if it contains no animal products, but most also require there to be no animal testing or animal exploitation of any type. For a product to be cruelty free, it needs to not be tested on animals anywhere in the process – not on the raw ingredients, not on the finished product, not by the government or the company, or by a third party.

For a product to be cruelty free, it needs to not be tested on animals anywhere in the process – not on the raw ingredients, not on the finished product, not by the government or the company, or by a third party. So it can contain animal ingredients such as milk, honey, lanolin, silk, pearl, and be cruelty free.

Brands sometimes lie and say their products are cruelty free or not tested on animals, when in fact the brand does test on animals. Brands sometimes say their products are 100% vegan because they contain no animal products or by-products, but most vegans feel that they must also not be tested on animals to count as vegan.

Two examples that I can think of are L’Oreal’s EverPure line, which says it is 100% vegan on the packaging, and Batiste dry shampoo, which also says 100% vegan on the packaging and it has a fake bunny logo. However, both L’Oreal and Batiste test their products where required by law. This means that they’re not cruelty free. I’ll be making another video to discuss how labels are misleading.

I hope you find my What’s the Difference Between Cruelty Free and Vegan? video helpful!