The new year often means new health promises and resolutions for many of us. For a lot of people, January is also known as ‘Veganuary’. For those of you that don’t know, Veganuary aims to reduce the suffering of animals by inspiring and supporting people across the globe to go vegan for the month of January.
In the spirit of Veganuary, our Operations Manager, Brooke wanted to take this opportunity to address the topic of animal cruelty in the period care sector.
A quick warning before you read on; if you’re not already aware of the animal testing problem in the health and cosmetics industry, prepare to be outraged by this overlooked atrocity.
Doing it for the animals…
“Even before working for TOTM, animal testing is something I’ve been passionately against for a while. As a real animal lover, I recently had a crisis of conscience and challenged myself to go vegan. It’s actually been a lot easier than expected, but it has made me conscious of a much wider issue. Should I only use products that are not tested on animals? And is it even possible?
Surely this would be easy – animal testing is a thing of the past, right? Living cruelty-free should be a doddle… or so I thought.
I appreciate products need to be determined safe for humans, but in today’s modern world we must have found a way to do this without testing on animals? It’s important to remember that “animals are able to perceive and feel, and experience pain and happiness just as we do.”
The truth about testing
There is huge public support for cruelty-free brands and products. Consumers are becoming more aware of animal cruelty and actively seeking brands and products that are cruelty-free, particularly when it comes to cosmetics. But, period care products are often left out of the discussion. Perhaps it’s people disbelief. Surely, they don’t literally put tampons in animals? That would be revolting. However, this is exactly what happens. In fact, it’s far worse. Millions of terrified rabbits and dogs have up to five(!) tampons stuffed into their vaginas each day. How is this barbaric practice still legal? It’s absolutely beyond me.
Surely the logical thing for these huge corporations to do would be to remove all potentially harmful chemicals and synthetic fibres from their products, and replace them with natural, organic cotton? Then there would be no need to subject these defenceless animals to the traumatic and horrific ordeals they experience each day, throughout the duration of their poor little lives.
The vegan option
If you’re using some of the mainstream brands of pads or tampons, you could unknowingly be supporting animal testing.
This is why I’m immensely proud to work for TOTM. If you read our blog regularly, you’ll be aware of our organic and sustainable credentials. But for me personally, the fact that our products are 100% vegan, and never tested on animals is a reason all to itself to love our company.
Next time it’s your time of the month, I urge you to consider using a product that you know has not been inserted into little bunnies.”
Will you make the switch to cruelty-free tampons, pads and liners this year? Shop our range here: https://www.totm.com/shop/
Brooke Allan, Operations Manager.
