L’Oréal should be congratulated for their intention to use 3D printing technology to create samples of human skin for testing cosmetics. The point that I wish to make is that there are many cosmetics companies which at the date of the post still test their products on animals. There is no need for it. PeTA has published a long list of companies that test on animals. Amongst them are many cosmetic companies such as Avon Products, Inc., Clarins of Paris and Clinique (Estee Lauder) to name three. They also list: Cacharel (L’Oreal) as testing on animals. There appears to be conflicting information because the French beauty company L’Oréal say they no longer test on animals, preferring to use artificially skin instead.
L’Oréal have recently gone into partnership with Organovo, a high tech, 3D bioprinting company, which has the goal of printing working human organs.
Guive Balooch, global vice-president of L’Oréal’s technology incubator (presumably meaning new technology) said that his company’s partnership with Organovo would bring about:
“new, advanced, in-vitro methods for evaluating product safety and performance.”
Experiments are being conducted with 3D printers to build skin grafts and other organs. Organovo’s “NovoGen” bioprinter can print living tissues made up of 20 or more layers of cells of a different type including a network of blood vessels. The cells are suspended in “bio-ink” and then fed into the printer. The printer then prints the tissue with “hydrogel” to fill in the gaps.
At the moment, L’Oréal receives donated skin tissue from plastic surgery patients. These samples are grown into skin for testing. Annually the company creates five square meters of human skin for testing their cosmetics.
Several years ago, myself and Elisa wrote about the unethical process of testing cosmetics on animals. Testing of cosmetics on animals was banned in Europe in 2009 and sales of animal tested cosmetics was banned in 2013. India has also implemented a ban.
However, in March 2013, I wrote about America’s lax approach to banning testing cosmetics on animals. Has there been any changes? Please tell me in a comment.
Science has come on leaps and bounds. It seems barbaric and backward that large, rich companies continue to test unessential products on animals in cages in sterile, anonymous laboratories behind closed doors. It is time for leading cosmetic companies to lead the way in the fight against animal testing. It would be good for business and the animals.
Source: Times Newspaper, PeTA and PoC
L’Oréal is committed to only market products whose safety has been evaluated according to rigorous and ethical protocols. The goal is to prevent our consumers from experiencing any adverse effects from the product’s use. Traditionally, the safety assessment of products and ingredients was done by means of animal testing.
However, since the 1980s, L’Oréal believes that the future of safety evaluation lies in the development of alternative, “predictive” strategies. This approach is built on the substantial scientific progress being made in the fields of reconstructed skin models, molecular modeling and also high-performance data processing. It allows us to exploit all of the data that the Group has been accumulated over the course of a century, representing over 50 000 ingredients.
These new strategies and the considerable research efforts behind them have paid off: in 1989, L’Oréal was able to end all testing of its products on animals, without making our products any less safe. Since March 2013, the Group has taken another decisive step: The Group no longer tests on animal, anywhere in the world, and does not delegate this task to others. An exception could be made if regulatory authorities required it for safety or regulatory purposes.
I’m glad to know about this. I’ve been using a L’Oreal sunscreen, and am about to stop, after finding that they do animal testing. It’s the best product I’ve found for my skin, so maybe I can continue to use it now.
Good, Sandy. Best to check what I have written is 100% correct. I believe it is but one can’t be sure enough.