little white truths

As you may remember, I announced at the beginning of the year that I was planning to slowly transition both my makeup and skincare collections to cruelty free (see that post here if you're interested).

Not long after, I also set out my cruelty free percentages and plans relating to my makeup collection (see here) and I'd intended to follow that up immediately with a similar post for my skincare stash, but shortly afterwards I contracted contact dermatitis so that threw a spanner in the works because it meant that the vast majority of my skincare collection had to be put away - so I decided to hold off this post for a later date.

That later date appears to be today.

Worth noting now is that I keep inventories for both makeup and skincare, so it will be interesting to see what my numbers are looking like today because I've no idea how well I've done with skincare since my last inventory - especially considering that I haven't been able to use most of my stuff for the last couple of months!

If you're interested in seeing my last skincare inventory, it's here. I wrote that in December, and since then I've been on no buys for both skincare and makeup - so I'm hoping my numbers have gone down at least a little bit.

Anyhoo! Let's get stuck into this.

Cruelty free count in my skincare collection

Below are the items I own from cruelty free brands. I've separated the brands to make things easier for myself when it comes to counting everything in future and monitoring what I've finished. If you're not interested in the bullet-points, just head for the total count below.

• Alpha-H: 9 
• The Ordinary: 8
• Antipodes: 2
• Dermalogica: 5
• Skyn Iceland: 6 (kit)
• Perricone MD: 4 (kit)
• Skinstitut: 3
• Kate Somerville: 1
• Korres: 1
• Mario Badescu: 1
• First Aid Beauty: 1
• ASAP: 1
• Chantecaille: 1
• Keisha: 1
• Pūrlisse: 1

Total count: 45 cruelty free skincare products.

Non cruelty free count in my skincare collection

Thankfully the list of brands here is a lot shorter.

• Garnier: 3
• Origins: 7 (kit)
• L'Oreal: 5
• Clinique: 1
• Lancôme: 1
• Laneige: 2

Total count: 19 non cruelty free products.

Percentages and notes

So, 70 per cent of my skincare collection is cruelty free and 30 per cent is not.

Please note:

• The items included above have been determined cruelty free or otherwise by information on the respective brands' websites or on crueltyfreekitty. If you think any of the items above are on the wrong list, please let me know. 
• This list only includes facial skincare (ie, not body or hand care). I don't own much body or hand care so I won't blog on those because there's not much to say. Nevertheless I'll certainly start looking for cruelty free options when it comes to such things.
• Also, as with makeup, I'm starting at the beginning - so I'm not going to focus for now on whether any sister or parent companies of the brands on my cruelty free list are cruelty free themselves. This may be a step I take later on, but for now, I'm approaching my transition from the ground up.

Aims, plans and rules/exceptions

My aim for 2018 is to have a skincare collection that's 90 per cent cruelty free by year's end.

As with my makeup collection, I will continue to use my older items first - whether they're cruelty free or not - because it's just as important to me to ensure that I'm not allowing anything to expire (therefore wasting it) as it is to aim for a higher percentage of cruelty free products.

I'll avoid purchasing any non cruelty free items from now on, but I will not automatically declutter items from non cruelty free brands that come my way by other means: for example, products that have been sent to me for review, given to me as presents or included in orders as GWPs. 

Why? First, we don't have enough money for me to be passing on usable items just because they're not cruelty free. Second, I'm a panner and I use and enjoy everything in my collection. If I were to pass non cruelty free items on to others for only that reason (ie, not because they don't work for me), there's no guarantee that others will use them as much as I would have if I'd kept them (or that others will attempt to finish them before they expire), nor can I say for sure that others will share my concerns when it comes to re-purposing/recycling packaging and reusing empty containers (eg for 'toys', games or arts/crafts for children). 

For me, this is about balance. I want to consider both the environment and animal testing at the same time. Hopefully that makes sense.

In sum

Ok, I think we're done here. 

I reckon I've already talked too much in this post so I'm not going to add more words in now to sum up what I've said above, but do let me know in the comments if you have any questions or suggestions for me. Going cruelty free can be a more detailed and difficult process than you might think, so I'd love to hear advice if you have some.

Hope all's well with you, and speak soon x

* All images courtesy of unsplash.com