Written by Alisa Mullins
When cosmetics giant Revlon held its annual meeting in Edison, New Jersey, yesterday, PETA was there to put the cosmetics giant's bigwigs on the spot. They didn't need any "smoky rose" blush to add a little color to their cheeks when a PETA representative stood up and made the following statement:
For more than two decades, Revlon portrayed itself to PETA and to millions of consumers as a company whose products were not tested on animals. During all this time, Revlon enjoyed and benefited from PETA's support and our promotion of Revlon products to women around the world. Revlon betrayed that trust. In 2012, PETA found out that Revlon has been selling its products in China, where tests on animals are required for cosmetics. When we questioned the company about this, Revlon repeatedly refused to answer our questions about whether it has been secretly paying for tests on animals. Your commitment to profit is obvious. Your commitment to consumers who care about cruelty-free products has been revealed as a sham. On behalf of PETA and our more than 3 million members and supporters, I ask Revlon to end sales in China in order to spare animals who continue to be killed in cruel tests. Will Revlon make this commitment?
The answer was what we expected: Revlon sells its products in countries that require tests on animals for its products—and has no plans to stop.
PETA turned to this innovative way to be heard by the company—purchasing just enough Revlon stock to allow us to attend shareholder meetings—after our repeated requests for information went unanswered. Next year, after we've held stock for a year, we'll be eligible to introduce a shareholder resolution calling on Revlon to renew its commitment to cruelty-free products.
What You Can Do
Refuse to buy Revlon products until the company pulls out of China like Paul Mitchell, Nature’s Gate, and other companies have. Visit our "Beauty Without Bunnies" page to find a list of companies that don't test on animals and to order a free copy of our first-ever global Cruelty-Free Shopping Guide to take with your every time you shop.
Written by Jeff Mackey
Since PETA began campaigning to expose companies that conduct agonizing and deadly tests on animals, consumers have firmly supported cruelty-free businesses like those on PETA's list of companies that don't test on animals. Realizing this, some unscrupulous companies are concealing the whole truth from consumers about their animal testing policies, but you shouldn't buy their propaganda—or their products.
Recently, for instance, Shiseido announced that it would mostly stop testing on animals. While eliminating animal tests is welcome, the company added that it would continue to test ingredients on animals "where it is required by law." So money spent on Shiseido products will continue to fund cruel testing on animals in countries such as China, where animal testing is still required by the government (although PETA's working to change that, too)—meaning that the company has not eliminated animal testing entirely.
Mary Kay is another corporation that seems to be playing word games with its customers, claiming that it doesn't "conduct" animal testing. Yet while Mary Kay might not perform the tests itself, the company does pay the Chinese government to test its products on animals.
PETA has also repeatedly contacted a number of other companies that refuse to reveal their animal testing policies. These companies—which should not be considered cruelty-free until they make a clear statement on animal testing—include the following:
By refusing to support companies that test on animals, we leverage our collective buying power to send a distinct message that testing on animals for cosmetics is unacceptable. To make sure that you're shopping truly cruelty-free, please check the online listing of companies that do and that don't test on animals or order your free copy of PETA's first-ever global cruelty-free shopping guide!
Written by Michelle Kretzer
For more than two decades, Revlon was a member of PETA's Caring Consumer program and refused to allow animals to be poisoned, burned, and blinded in tests of its products. But the company is now on the "Do Test" list after Revlon started selling products in China where animal tests are required for most cosmetics. Although PETA has asked Revlon numerous times to come clean about whether it is paying for animal tests overseas, the company won't say—which, to us, says it all. We are now stepping up our involvement with Revlon in a very different way—we're headed to the company's boardroom.
We bought stock in the company because as shareholders, we can demand transparency about animal testing activity and also work in yet another way to get the tests stopped.
We've also set up an action alert that our supporters can use to e-mail Revlon and tell the company that consumers have a right to know whether its makeup is being tested on animals. Supporters can then tell everyone they know not to buy Revlon products until the company cleans up its act.
Many compassionate companies, including Paul Mitchell and Urban Decay, have held true to their cruelty-free principles and will not sell their products in China because they do not believe in funding animal tests. PETA is helping to fund scientists working with China to help the country institute non-animal tests, and until those tests are available, Revlon should pull its cosmetics off Chinese shelves, too. In the meantime, conscientious consumers can shop from a long list of companies on PETA's cruelty-free list that don't harm animals at home or abroad.
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The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health held a contest to create the most eye-catching and informative packaging for its free condoms, and … well, let's just say that eye-catching and informative are what PETA does best.
Doctors say that the Atkins diet could be bad for the heart. Shocker.
"No-kill" animal shelters are slowly killing animals. Here's how.
What swim, have fins, and are radioactive? … And the male ones may also have a lower sperm count than natural as well as female body parts.
If people you know are still using products that have been tested on animals, PETA's alarming video "Testing … One, Two, Three" might be all it takes to change their minds.
What better way to celebrate a day that's all about love than by showing how much you love animals? See how your big day can make a big difference for our furry friends with PETA's vegan wedding guide.
If you need yet another reason to love Stella McCartney, here's a big one: She's giving one lucky PETA supporter her Falabella Cross Body Bag, worth $1,095. Enter to win it!
El Al Airlines has reneged on its promise not to ship monkeys to laboratories. Tell the airline to stop profiting from cruelty to animals.
The California State Legislature is considering a bill that would ban using dogs to hunt bears and bobcats. Urge the Assembly to pass this bill, which would protect all three species from cruelty.
Sandia National Laboratories is poisoning squirrels on its grounds even though PETA has given the company information on humane squirrel control. Urge Sandia to adopt the humane and more effective methods.
Rob_ert|cc by 2.0
The Frederick Keys minor league baseball team in Maryland is planning to strap monkeys onto dogs' backs while the dogs herd sheep and to release a captured dove as part of its between-innings entertainment. Tell the team that cruelty to animals has no place in the great American pastime.
Tell Revlon to come clean about whether it's paying for animal tests in order to market its cosmetics in China, and encourage the company always to be cruelty-free.
For each saltwater fish displayed on PETCO's shelves, nine more died before even reaching the store as a result of their traumatic capture. Urge PETCO to stop dealing in saltwater animals who were ripped from their natural homes.
Written by PETA
It has been exactly 30 years since PETA's historic Silver Spring monkeys case thrust the animal rights movement into mainstream consciousness in the summer of 1981. PETA's first undercover investigation led to many other firsts—the first search-and-seizure warrant to be served on a U.S. laboratory, the first confiscation from a laboratory of abused animals, and the first cruelty-to-animals conviction of an experimenter.
Those 17 macaque monkeys carried much of the weight of the animal rights movement on their backs. When we found the Silver Spring monkeys at the Institute for Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Maryland, many of them were being used in a crude experiment in which their spinal nerves were severed, making it difficult or impossible for them to move one of their arms. The experimenter, Edward Taub, starved them, used surgical pliers to pinch their skin, and gave them electric shocks to try to force them to use their disabled limbs to get food. They had lost most of the fur on their tails to malnutrition.
The trauma of the cruel, invasive experiments and intense confinement to rusty, broken, and mold- and feces-encrusted cages was so severe that many of them had ripped off their own flesh and were left to suffer from open, festering wounds. Many of the monkeys had lost their fingers to the jagged, broken, and rusty wires that protruded into the tiny, uncomfortable space where they had to sit and lie.
PETA pursued the Silver Spring monkeys case for more than a decade—all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Although we prevailed in getting some of the monkeys into a group indoor/outdoor space away from public view at the San Diego Zoo, some of them—including Augustus, for whom PETA's Augustus donor club is named—were turned over to another laboratory, anesthetized, experimented on, and killed.
But because the Silver Spring monkeys case forced the cruelty of animal experimentation into the spotlight, it paved the way for many victories for animals. In 1993, PETA persuaded General Motors to become the first company to stop using animals in automobile crash tests, and other companies soon followed until those horrendous experiments were eradicated. At PETA's urging, Revlon and Estée Lauder became the first mainstream corporations to end animal testing, and since then more than 950 household, cosmetics, and personal-care companies have followed suit. And just in the past year, after another PETA investigation, animal testing hellhole Professional Laboratory and Research Services, Inc., shut its doors and surrendered its animals, and four of its workers were indicted on felony cruelty-to-animals charges (another first for animals in laboratories).
The Silver Spring monkeys (and some of the people who helped rescue them) are all at peace now, but their legacy will continue to lead to more groundbreaking changes for animals for many years to come.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
PETA's 2010 Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrity Olivia Wilde and shelter dog advocate Emma Stone have another (synthetic) feather to put in their nonwool caps.
The ladies each earned a PETA Kind Choices Award for promoting cruelty-free cosmetics from Revlon, one of the first cosmetics companies to ban all animal testing.
Olivia and Emma are gorgeous living proof that women can save animals' lives with every mascara, eye shadow, and blush product they purchase. In addition to Revlon, hundreds of other companies, including Almay, Kiss My Face and ELF, refuse to test their products on animals. Check out PETA's handy cruelty-free guide for the complete list.
The following is a guest post from PETA Living's Mylie.
This week is "Meat's Not Green" Week, but it also happens to be World Week for Animals in Laboratories. So, if you are already doing a little spring cleaning, what better time to clear out any household items you have lying around that were tested on animals?
Check out these suggestions for replacing items that you might currently be using with cruelty-free products that you can pick up at your local drug and discount stores, such as Walgreens and Target:
For a more complete listing, check out our searchable database!
Written by Mylie Thompson
When I was 12, I won a fishing contest—something I haven't been proud of for a long time now. Back in the day, I was conditioned to ignore any qualms I might have felt about hooking fish, but I eventually realized how much suffering I was causing and put down my rod and reel for good.
What I've only more recently come to understand is that angling doesn't just hurt fish. Case in point: PETA staffers Hannah and Philip Schein were at Lake Kussharo in Hokkaido, Japan, when they saw a whooper swan who had a multi-pronged fishing lure embedded in her foot. She tried to remove it the only way she could—with her mouth—but the sharp hooks only became embedded in her beak as well. With her face now attached to her foot, the swan struggled in a twisted circular position, panicked and in pain:
Tragedy was avoided in this case, but not all victims of fishing tackle are so lucky. Countless water birds and mammals suffer, and many die, from injuries caused by discarded or lost fishing hooks, monofilament line, lead weights, and floats. Animals who become entangled in fishing line can be trapped underwater and drown or die slowly of starvation. The UK has banned certain types of tackle because of this problem, and other countries need to follow its lead.
Even non-anglers can help by skipping seafood. Commercial fishing boats haul in sharks, sea turtles, birds, seals, and dolphins who get tangled in nets and hooked by long-lines only to be thrown overboard to die of shock, blood loss, or predation.
If you find yourself craving cod or salivating over salmon, just picture a plate full of snared, scared swans. Then enjoy these cruelty-free recipes instead.
This past weekend, the Southern California desert town of Indio was steamier than usual. PETA's lettuce ladies made a special appearance at the three-day Coachella Music Festival—where our beloved Morrissey was performing—and wooed broiling-hot fans to the joy of soy by giving away free Tofutti Cuties. The ladies report that the icy-cold, nondairy treats were a smash hit and even turned skeptics into fans.
And what about Morrissey, you ask? Well, he proved once again that he will never let animals down. In front of a crowd of thousands, Mr. M. halted his own performance to let the meat vendors inside the venue know their presence was not welcome, shouting: "I smell burning flesh, and I hope to God it's human. This smell of burning animals is making me sick."
Check out some photos of our ladies at the festival:
Hmm, anyone else think a Morrissey and Lettuce Ladies world tour is in order?
Written by Jennifer Cierlitsky
Pamela Anderson and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin? It turns out that the two of them have more in common than you might think. Namely, they are both opposed to the mass slaughter of seals.
Pamela has written to Putin suggesting that he use his political influence to help her—and many other Canadians, Russians, and people worldwide—end Canada's shame. Putin recently banned the killing of baby harp seals in Russia after calling the hunt a "bloody industry that should have been banned long ago." Pamela, a Canadian who is always a stunning PETA ambassador, has hand-delivered thousands of petition signatures to her homeland's parliament, protesting the fact that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper still allows the beating and skinning of approximately 338,200 seals every year. PETA and Pamela believe that if Putin directs his opposition of the seal slaughter at Prime Minister Harper, Harper will sit up and take note.
Written by Shawna Flavell
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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