Friday 16 March 2012

MAC Cosmetics UK - Carmine free products


***UPDATE, 19th January 2012***
Estée Lauder, the owner of the brand MAC Cosmetics has recently been found to be paying to conduct animal testing in China. I highly recommend reading the links below for further information - 

http://www.peta.org/b/thepetafiles/archive/2012/02/16/3-companies-booted-off-cruelty-free-list.aspx
https://secure.peta.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=3859


I won't delete the list of products below that do not contain carmine, but the list will not be updated either.


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After emailing Mac Cosmetics U.K. back in January and enquiring if they had a list of products without the ingredient Carmine readily available, the answer was that unfortunately, they didn't. However, the lovely lady I wrote to asked if I could provide a list of items I would be interested in, and she would consult the laboratories. A little over a fortnight later I was kindly advised which of my list do and do not contain Carmine. The results are as follows -

The following DO NOT contain Carmine -
Paint Pots - Bare Study, Painterly
Tinted Lip Conditioner - Fuchsia Fix, Petting Pink
Lipstick - Chatterbox
Powder Blush - Well Dressed, Desert Rose, Tenderling

The following DO contain Carmine -
Lipstick - Pretty Please, Speed Dial
Cream Colour Base - Improper Copper, Shell

Accurate as of 12th January, 2012.

Hopefully this will be of help to some people out there. I know I was getting frustrated with the lack of online ingredient lists! I would be interested to know if anybody has any other products from MAC that do not contain Carmine. If you're interested in knowing about any other MAC products, their customer service team was great and I would highly recommend contacting them. Be sure to stick the results in a comment below!



Thursday 8 March 2012

Benefit Cosmetics - vegan list?

Recently I emailed Benefit, enquiring if they have a list of products suitable for vegans. Here is the response they sent -


Thanks for contacting Benefit with your enquiry about our products.

We're sorry, but we're not able to provide you with information on ingredients at this time. All of our ingredients are printed on our packaging, and the product packaging itself is the only accurate source for ingredient information. Based on the availability of ingredients, occasionally an ingredient in a product may change from one batch to another, and we can't always predict the batch from which an item will be shipped when a customer orders. But for each batch, the correct ingredients are always printed on the packaging.
We do offer a hassle-free 30-day return policy. If you'd like, you can order the product and review the packaging on the product label yourself. If you have any concerns, you can return the product to Benefit for a full refund. We hope this information has been helpful!

Thank you for choosing Benefit Cosmetics and have a beautiful day!

Personally I feel disappointed that they can't provide a list of their products (if any) which are vegan friendly. I would expect a company to know what ingredients go into each products, especially since determining from products ingredients lists is often a difficult task to say the least! 

I'll be posting responses from companies regarding ingredients as and when I receive a reply, so stay tuned!

Email response received 5th March, 2012.