When I went vegan, I ended up throwing out and giving aways a lot of my cosmetics.  There's a few factors to consider about makeup and finding ones that are vegan friendly.  I got rid of my products that were:

Tested on Animals.  Many large makeup, skincare, and beauty brands test on animals.  If they manufacture in China, they are actually required by law to test on animals.  Cosmetic testing on animals can often result in burns, injury, infection or even the animal's death (estimated 100 million+ animals are killed in animal testing each year.  I know, that's a huge number, definitely more than I ever expected to learn.)  There are a multitude of non-animal testing options that are safer and readily available for beauty companies to test their products on, yet most continue to animal test because of the cheap manufacturing and testing cost.  Many brands have eschewed their animal testing in favor of cruelty-free practices, but some brands such as Maybelline, MAC, L'Oreal, Aveeno, Dove, and more still test on animals.  

Animal Ingredients.  Many commercial makeup products use animal ingredients that most people don't even think about.  Substances like carmine (crushed beetles, used to pigment lipstick and blush), tallow (rendered animal fat, used in foundations, eye makeup, etc.), estrogen (used in restorative creams and perfumes), and beeswax (in lipstick) are commonly used, just to name a few.  

These are my new favorite products in my makeup bag.  Not only are they animal friendly, but they are amazing quality!  I admit, there are some crappy products out there, many that I've unfortunately wasted my money on, but these are the cream of the vegan crop.

Here's a video that I posted on my Youtube!  It's short (less than a minute).  I did post a little disclosure in the caption section because I was misinformed about one of the products in there from Origins.  But hey, everyone makes mistakes!

Hope you enjoyed this post!  I'll probably be doing more in the future like this as I find new vegan makeup staples to share.

Written by Julia from Little Miss Haute Couture