Environmentally Friendly??

We've all heard the rants about animal testing, chemical pollution due to makeup, and child labour. I decided to dig in to a few companies and find out if our favourite brands are testing on animals!
I found out that if a product says something along the lines of "only tested on animals when required by law," that tells you absolutely nothing. What you need to find out is what countries this product is sold in, because certain countries require all products to be tested on animals. Anything sold in China has been tested on animals, guaranteed, because it is required by law.

Here is a list of some major cosemtic companies that test on animals:
-M.A.C
-Clinique
-Dove

Here are some companies that aren't tested on animals:
-L'Oreal (Lancome, Armani, Yves Saint Laurence)
-Revlon (both L'Oriel and Revlon used to sell to China but have recently pulled out so that they are no longer required to test on animals)
-Benefit
-Physician's Formula
-Covergirl is a little up in the air, because they used to test on animals, although an unconfirmed rumour has it they no longer do animal testing.
-Avon 

PETA has a great resource for quickly finding out if a company tests on animals. Click here to check it out!

Toxins!

There's a lot of hype about toxins in makeup, so I decided to check it out. Here's what I found:
-Parabens are a preservative, found in makeup, deoderants, and food. Parabens partially mimic a hormone called estrogen, which is known to cause breast cancer. They have been found in some breast cancer tumours.  Parabens have been deemed "practically non-toxic" because the body excretes them quickly... I would still recommend trying to avoid products containing parabens. Its better to be safe than sorry!
-Toluene is a chemical that WHMIS has labelled as "very toxic'. It is believed that toluene may harm the nervous system, the kidneys, and colour vision. It can also harm your baby if you're pregnant. Long term exposure can cause red, cracked skin. Why are we putting this on our faces?? On makeup labels, toluene may also appear as phenylmethane, methylbenzane, and toluol.
-Mineral Oil ... sounds healthy, right? Wrong. Mineral oil clogs pores, which means that the skin has a hard time eliminating toxins. (Remember when I was talking about parabens, and I said that the reason they aren't too dangerous is because your body excretes them? Well, if your pores are clogged, how does your skin get rid of it? Mineral oil can also cause premature aging, because it slows down skin function and cell development.
-Chemical Sunscreens (include Retinyl Palmytate, Oxybenzone, and Octyl Methoxycinnamate). Sunscreen is supposed to protect your skin, but you need to be careful what kind you're using! If your sunscreen has any of the chemicals mentioned, you may be making yourself more susceptible to skin cancer! The list of reasons is long, so I'll hand the explaination over to the website you can access by clicking on the link.

There are so many more harmful products which you can find on the internet, but I've tried to filter out the ones that all say "may cause cancer" because we hear that about Every. Single. Thing. I've tried to find chemicals that have a solid explaination of why they're harmful, but I would recommend taking a look on different websites to see what other people think may be legitimately harmful!