Can you be vegan but use non-vegan beauty products?

It's obviously up to the individual herself but I'd like to hear the opinions from all of you. Can you be a proper vegan if you only apply it to your diet and not your beauty regime/fashion products (like leather etc.)?

 

No - you can't.

But - that being said - if it is not an issue that bothers you - who cares. But let's do try to have some truth in labeling. If you use animal products in your daily life yet you don't consume them - then technically you are a 'Strict Vegetarian' or have a 'Vegan Diet' but are not really Vegan.

Vegan means you do not consciously consume, use, or wear animal products of any kind. This includes honey, leather, silk - and even makeup with pig fat and products with urea.

Be honest with yourself, try to understand your own limitations, and don't judge yourself too harshly if you are doing the best you can based on your own moral standard. But please folks - do be honest with the rest of us. If you just eat Vegan - say it. For me - I would be so bummed if I met a heady Woman that said she was Vegan and found out after we'd kissed that her lips were smeared with pig grease.

 

Maybe not a vegan strictly. I am curious as to why you do this? Not in a nasty way, just genuinely interested.

 

We didn't make it to the top of the food chain by eating salad.

 

But we have caused an incredible amount of pain, disease, destruction and fucked over the earth by choosing to consume meat and animal products.

Top of the food chain? I'd prefer to be a little lower down and still have a healthy world to live in.

I could also argue the inaccuracy of your statement - which is wrong. But I don't really have time for another of these silly arguments.

 

I don't think so. To be honest I think once you become a vegan you sort of become more aware of animal products anyway. So it seemed natural for me to go online and check out what brands are cool and what brands use animals.

 

I agree - DM. The way I see it - I'm not a martyr. If the choice is between using an animal product/killing an animal or me suffering - I am not going to suffer for the cause. If I have fleas, or my home is infested with cockroaches - those bugs are gonna die! If I have a serious illness and the only medicine contains animal products or has been tested on animals, I am still going to take it.

I want to cause as little harm as POSSIBLE with my diet and lifestyle choices. I am not going to die, feel pain or illness due to diet or lifestyle choices.

 

Agree 100%.


Apart from that, I only think you can label yourself as vegan and still use some cruelty products if you are transitioning.
For example, I still have some makeup from the non-vegan days, and yes, the brands test on animals. I'm not going to throw it away. But as soon as i finish them, I replace them with cruelty-free products.
So I still have some cruelty products, but now I try to only buy cruelty-free.
Does that make sense?

 

I agree ^^ great answer

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I'm still struggling with this one, myself.

As for testing on animals go, whether the company itself does it or their parent company, that is fairly easy to understand. It takes a bit of research, but the information usually is out there. Where I struggle is the brands that are cruelty free, but have animal byproducts. For example, honey, beeswax, carmine.

By the way, I'm not against animal byproducts if it doesn't harm or kill the animal. For a vegan, I understand how it can't be accepted, but for me... being a vegetarian, I'm okay with it.

Anyways, beeswax comes from the hives of bees, so in theory I can use it because it's not the bees, themselves, it's a byproduct that doesn't harm or kill the animal. But, what if someone is taking the home of bees while the bees reside there, isn't that hurting them? Basically, I don't know if the people making this beeswax is waiting until the bees empty their hive or just taking it. Carmine comes from the cochineal, which is an insect. So, logically thinking... don't use brands with that ingredient because that's an animal that was killed. But, as far as my reserach goes, cochineals only live for about 60 days and for the production of carmine, people need the cochineal to be dead, so that it can dry up. How do I know if these people producing carmine aren't just waiting until they naturally die, it's only 60 days? Or what if they are capturing many cochineals and killing them prematurely? Though, to make carmine you need a mature cochineal, that is dead, but intact and dried. Honey comes from bees because they produce it. So, logically it's okay for me to use because it's not the bees themselves, but a byproduct that doesn't harm or kill the animal. But, what if the people collecting this honey is taking too much honey so that it jeopardizes the bees' survival. What if they're overworking the bees to make more honey then they naturally produce?

I'm not there, I don't know where this byproduct comes from. And I don't know all the reserach in the world. And the little bit I do know I'm not certain if it is correct. Most importantly, I don't know what some of the ingredients are, though this one is easy to avoid if I pick brands that have less then ten ingredients or so, and they're all easy to read.

Sometimes it just makes me so sad that I just shut down. What helps is writing down all the ingredients I'm questioning and I do reserach on it until I exhaust myself and I shut down again. I tell myself as long as the list doesn't get longer, I'm okay. And if I can checkoff an ingredient with certainty, even better, though that hasn't happened yet.

Clearly, none of this helps you.

Sorry!

 

no, vegan is a lifestyle, not a diet. It's like having a closet of fur coats, and calling yourself a vegan. You might be able to call yourself vegetarian depending on what it is.