Before creams, lotions and cleaning products are approved for the cosmetics market, their tolerance is often tested on animals. This should ensure that the cosmetic products do not trigger allergies or skin reactions. But how many animals are actually used and what exactly for? How do you recognize articles -free articles? And what other ways are there to ensure the safety of the care products?
Animal experiments are an emotional topic for many people. Public discussions about it are difficult, although we owe a lot to them. Many medical knowledge only became possible through animal experiments and without them there would be no safe medication. The marketing of many everyday products does not work without previous tests. But how many animals are it actually and what are they used for?
No animal experiments for cosmetics in the EU?
In 2023, experiments were carried out at around 2.13 million animals in Germany, as can be seen from the statistics of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). Around two thirds of them were needed in basic research or applied research – i.e. mostly to research body functions, diseases and their therapies. Around 246,650 animals (around 17 percent) were used for “quality control, toxicology and other harmlessness tests”. In addition to routine tests in the production of food, chemicals, medicines and medical devices, this category also officially also attempted animal experiments for cosmetics. However, zero animals were actually used in this section.
This is no coincidence. Because within the European Union, animal experiments in connection with cosmetics have been fundamentally and entirely banned since 2013. This applies to finished cosmetics such as creams, lotions, shower gels, shampoos and makeup as well as their individual components. You can no longer sell cosmetics in the EU if they have been tested on animals. All products that come into contact with our skin, hair, nails, teeth, teeth or oral cavity have been created in principle without animal suffering – provided they were developed, produced or sold in the EU.
However, it should be noted that many components of care products are considered chemicals because they are not processed exclusively in cosmetics but also in other products- for example in detergents or cleaning agents, medication or colors. When it comes to approval and production, animal experiments on quality control and security are routinely prescribed by the Chemicals Act, provided that there are no animal -free alternatives. If a substance is not only used in cosmetics, it is listed as chemical in the animal test statistics.
What do the seals on cosmetics mean?
If you want to be sure that the desired cosmetics and care product actually came about without animal experiments, you should therefore take a close look. You can only recognize animal test -free products really reliably by seals such as the “Leaping Bunny”. This rasem symbol comes from animal welfare organizations and is internationally valid. There is that all ingredients and recipes used without animal experiments do without any animal experiments, including those from other EU countries or partner companies. In Germany there is also a seal with a similar appearance and the same meaning, the “rabbit with the protective hand”. The only difference: the ban applies retrospectively for different lengths of ingredients tested in the past.
Cosmetics with such seals are free of animal experiments, but can contain ingredients of animal origin, for example beeswax, honey or milk. So they are not necessarily vegan. The situation is different with products that are marked with the seal of the “vegan flower”. This label stands for cosmetics, which is also vegan and was made without animal testing.
If, on the other hand, only the vegan sign (V label) or a seal for natural cosmetics-such as BDIH, Natrue or Cosmos-is printed on the product, the ingredients are vegan and/or natural origin. However, they may have been tested on animals as far as the loopholes of the EU regulation allow all manufacturers. The natural cosmetics guidelines also restrict animal experiments, for example by limiting the ingredients, but do not fundamentally prohibit them.
Less animal experiments thanks to alternatives
The international 3R principle (Replace, Reduce, Refine) stipulates that the number of test animals is reduced-among other things, by replacing animal experiments using alternative methods (replace). This ethical principle developed in the 1950s now has an effect and the numbers have actually been declining for several years, both in research and animal experiments for chemicals and cosmetics ingredients. In order to examine the skin tolerance of cosmetics, numerous alternatives are now available. “The common alternative methods include artificially generated organ -like structures in cell culture,” writes the initiative “Understand animal experiments” in their “Compass Tier tests 2025”.
These cell cultures, fabrics and organoids imitate the conditions in the human body or individual organs. With cultures of human skin cells, for example, scientists can observe through a microscope how they react to a certain substance. There are also three-dimensional cell cultures as in-vitro models of human skin, including their various layers. Such skin tissue can even be created from living cells and hydrogels using 3D printing. At these skin timely, the components of creams, lotions and co can be tested safely and without animal suffering for possible skin irritation. In addition, it is possible to combine different cell types and mini organs on a chip and thus simulate the overall effect of a chemical or a cosmetics product on the human body.
AI replaces animal experiments
Another chance lies in technological progress and computer -aided methods: “Artificial intelligence (AI) can also help with the reduction of animal experiments: among other things, to carry out simulations and thus identify poisonous chemical compounds, but also to carry out analyzes and to draw conclusions,” says “compass animal testing”. The AI systems compare existing research data to known substances with new chemicals and products. From this they then conclude how similar the molecules, ingredients and recipes are and what effect on the human body can be expected. The AI systems predict how poisonous a substance is for us-for example a certain cosmetic ingredient.
This procedure does not replace completely direct laboratory and animal experiments, because the predictions still have to be checked. However, artificial intelligence can provide information on what should be paid to the tests and which substances are probably most suitable. In this way, only promising candidates can be tested on corresponding cell cultures, organ or animal models. As a result, fewer animals are used. “However, it is not yet possible to quantify how strongly by such AI-based methods could be reduced by animal experiments,” according to the “Understanding animal experiments” initiative, which includes more than 100 German research institutions. How helpful AI is to reduce animal experiments will probably only be shown in the next few years.
