Cruelty Free / Vegan Make Up Brands

The vegan diet has increased in popularity recently and is fairly easy to follow these days, but what about those products in your makeup bag?  A'listers such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Natalie Portman have all touted the benefits of glowing skin and hair that come with the vegan lifestyle.  However, a plant-based diet is fairly easy to stick to, but really living the vegan lifestyle can be a little trickier.  Especially when it comes to fabulous vegan cosmetics that live up to their non-vegan counterparts.

The good news is that now when you filter your makeup search by "vegan or cruelty free makeup" there are plenty of options for you to choose from.  Vegan lip balms and lipsticks abound, with the rest of the makeup counter from foundation to eye shadows, blush and mascara catching up fast too.  Kat Von D recently overhauled her entire makeup collection to ensure that every product is 100% vegan, and even iconic beauty brands are offering cruelty free options in their ranges.

So with the hunt for vegan makeup on the increase, the past decade has seen a 350% rise in the number of people opting for a vegan lifestyle in the UK.   So I thought I'd give you my 'humble' opinion of some of the best vegan makeup offerings on the market.

Bit firstly ... What is actually meant by vegan makeup?

There are many misconceptions surrounding what exactly makes a product suitable for vegans.  Some confuse it with simply being cruelty-free, which of course it does need to be, animal testing is a huge no-no.  But actually it is much more than that.  Vegan makeup needs to contain absolutely no animal derived ingredients or by products.  That includes popular natural moisturising agents such as beeswax, honey and lanolin, plus the colour pigment carmine, which is derived from the cochineal beetle.  If you are in the process of going vegan I have a full list further down on the ingredients you now need to avoid.

​