Have you ever wondered if the makeup you use every day is tested on an animal? Makeup seems harmless, but we often forget the products we use every day is potentially tested on animals. Many makeup products that are used worldwide are animal tested. Animal abuse is a serious problem faced around the globe. Many factors are contributing to this. More than 100 million animals in a U.S. laboratory including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs are getting abused each year. They get burned, crippled, or poisoned each year for a biology lesson, medical training, curiosity-driven experimentation, and cosmetics testing. Numerous of poor, innocent animals have to suffer because of our actions. After being tested on multiple times, if the animals haven’t already died yet, they are then killed without any pain relief. Is a mascara so crucial that a bunny will have to die?
Animals should not get tested for numerous reasons. First, It’s unethical. It is not fair for a living and thinking creatures who are entirely harmless to be sent in cages for them to suffer. They feel the pain of something just like we would, too. Next, it is not accurate. Humans and animals are not entirely the same, so an experiment you performed on an animal might have a different outcome on a human being. PETA is an organization where they advertise and protest for animals’ rights. www.peta.org, “The Food and Drug Administration reported 92 out of every 100 drugs that pass animal tests fail in humans.” Also, there are different methods for animal testing we could do as in, human-patient simulators and computer modeling. The U.S. has technology we could use for experiments instead of using live animals. Lastly, it wastes a lot of money and time. Both are important, and we should not lose it. Testing can prolong the suffering of humans who are loitering for results from experimenters which may not even be accurate. This can cause too wastes money.

This topic brings up a lot of controversy among people. A lot of people are against using animals for experimentation, while some feel it is only ok in some instances. I interviewed a couple of students from Wheeler High School and asked them if they would ever use an animal tested makeup product, why or why not. Sarai Okoye (10) replied by saying, “yes, but it is not meaningful.” Another girl, Mikayla Booker (12) said, “no, because it took an animal to die for.” Lastly, Kennedy Sutton (10) stated, “no because harming an animal for anything is never a good reason. All animals deserve a chance to survive and live their life to the fullest.” As you can see, most people can pretty much all agree on the same thing. I also asked the same people if they agreed with animal experimentation, and why or why not. When I interviewed Sarai Okoye (10), she responded with “no because all animals have feelings and as much as they may not seem like it, they hurt a lot.” Kennedy Sutton (10) had a similar response because she believed, “animal harming is wrong and how would we feel if the same thing happened to us. We wouldn’t like it if we had to wake up every day being stuck in a cage with needles down our back.” Lastly, Mikayla Booker(12), state, “no because I like pets and I don’t want to kill them.”
Even though most people disagree with animal testing, they do not do anything about it to help prevent it. Animal testing is merely unnecessary. This doesn’t mean we should put humans at risk, but we can use different methods.

There are many different ways you can help animals that are getting abused. You can take action and start using makeup brands that don’t believe in animal testing. There are a lot of names out there that are cruelty-free, such as, Kat Von D, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Hourglass, Urban Decay, Too Faced, NARS, and Milk Makeup. Even by just supporting those brands, it is going to make a difference. And if you stop buying brands that do experiment with animals, for example, Benefit, Bobbi Brown, Calvin Klein, and Chanel, you are beneficial to the movement. You can also join PETA’s (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) Action Team to help even more animals from suffering. By educating others, you will help spread the word! You can furthermore donate. When you donate, be careful the money you are giving out is going to help animals and not do the opposite. The world doesn’t need another lipstick, hand soap, a drug for erectile dysfunction, or pesticide so severely it should come at the expense of animals’ lives. Every animal has a story.