Flower Beauty May No Longer Be Vegan Friendly
Readers of Logical Harmony, it’s with a very sad heart that I write this post. Flower Beauty has just informed me that they are still cruelty free, but that Flower Beauty may no longer be a vegan friendly line.
January 9, 2014 – Please find an update on this situation in the post An Update on Flower Beauty’s Vegan Status.
I previously had received the following statement from their PR firm. I also received the same statement from their customer service team.
1. Are Flower Beauty products tested on animals as a finished product? Either by Flower Beauty, a parent company, an affiliate or a 3rd party company. There is no animal testing done on any formula or ingredient. This includes raw materials for our formulas. We are not affiliated with any companies that tests product ingredients on animals. Our products do not contain any animal-derived ingredient. Our cosmetics lab has signed a Statement of Assurance through PETA. Our ingredients are non-toxic according to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.
2. Are Flower Beauty products tested on animals during production? Either by Flower Beauty, a parent company, an affiliate or a 3rd party company. See above
3. Are the ingredients used to make Flower Beauty products tested on animals at any point? Either by Flower Beauty, a parent company, an affiliate or a 3rd party company. See above
4. Does Flower Beauty have any vegan options (items without animal ingredients)? See above – they are vegan
5. When using ingredients, such as glycerin, that can be derived from a plant or an animal, does Flower Beauty use the animal based item or the plant based item? Plant based item
A couple of months ago, I emailed again asking about the product packaging that was surfacing with “may contain carmine” on the labels. The response I received stated again that they products were vegan and do not contain any animal by-products. I asked if they would help me explain to my readers about the labels. The response I got stated that it was added to packaging due to the cosmetics being produced in a shared equipment factory. They said that they assured me the line was vegan and did not contain carmine or any other animal ingredients.
As I’m sure you have noticed, Flower Beauty has been heavily promoted on Logical Harmony. Most of my personal makeup stash was swapped out for the Flower products. They were cute colors, very good quality, and budget friendly. I was telling anyone and everyone about them!
The other day, I received a tweet from Logical Harmony reader @MsMollyGirl who said she saw a tweet from the brand stating that they were cruelty free and not vegan. I immediately reached out to the brand and got the following response via Twitter –
We are sorry if there was a misrepresentation of our products. FLOWER Beauty is not vegan. We are cruelty free.
My heart sunk immediately. This is a brand that I had been assured by both their PR and customer service was cruelty free and completely vegan. I had been telling friends, readers of Logical Harmony, and other bloggers about them. I mentioned them to multiple press sources when being interviewed about vegan beauty. I spent hundreds of dollars on their products. And now it turns out that they may no longer be vegan or, even worse, may never have been. I especially feel badly that I have unintentionally spread mis-information about this brand. Thinking of all the animal loving consumers that may have purchased their items based on my recommendation and now to find out this… I have no words to describe how I feel and can only offer incredibly sincere apologies to everyone.
Flower Beauty is still cruelty free. Which is great. But the idea that multiple sources had once assured me they were completely vegan and now to have one say that they are not… It’s hard to take. I have reached out to them about the possibility of putting together a list of vegan options that I can publish here. I have also reached back out to the PR contact I have to see if they can shed some light on this. I have my fingers crossed that there is still some truth to what I was told multiple times by this brand and hopes that they offer vegan options.
If any more news comes out of this, I will update here on Logical Harmony. In the meantime, a disclosure will be added to all previous posts that mention Flower Beauty. Since the Cruelty Free & Vegan Brands List includes only cruelty free brands with vegan options, and it’s unclear at this time if Flower still offers any, they will be moved to the Grey Area list for the time being.
January 9, 2014 – Please find an update on this situation in the post An Update on Flower Beauty’s Vegan Status.
Hello! I just now came across your web site/blog after searching the question ‘how safe is the Flower Beauty brand,’ after I could not locate this brand on the EWG/Skin Deep web site. I sent the following email on the Flower Beauty site, but have yet to hear anything back. I’m a licensed Master Esthetician and I hold an Oncology Esthetics certification. I’m certainly not perfect, but I try to only use healthy, non toxic, safe ingredients in my skin care and cosmetics, and I strive to only recommend the same to my clients. Many have/had very compromised health from having cancer, and many have asked me opinions on products and ingredients. Per my oncology training, because of the negativity even though they are still deemed safe per the US’ FDA (who I hold little respect for as it is), parabens should absolutley be avoided.
I find it hard to believe Drew Barrymore is fully aware of any toxic ingredients, whether controversial or not. I cannot recommend for my clients to use Flower Beauty until the parabens/toxins are removed.
I’m glad to come across your site and I’m happy there are people out there spreading the word on the truth when it comes to these topics.
FYI Carmine is obtained from insects.I’m not sure what other ingredients they use but that”s where they get that one from.
This is so sad, I thought I had found the perfect make up but to find out it’s not vegan.. ack!
Why oh WHY is it so hard to produce cosmetics without harming animals????
Sadly, it’s not hard to produce them without harming animals. It’s so frustrating that brands continue to test on animals and use animal ingredients when it’s definitely not necessary.
pacificabeauty.com has a cc cream that is 20% off right now with code: bestcc
I genuinely do not know why anyone would use any other brand. EVERYTHING is both cruelty free and vegan. Even their fragrances, candles, makeup, you name it.
I couldn’t recommend a brand more.
I have no association with the brand, but am a big fan of the products.
I no one (NO ONE) would buy their tested and/or animal ingredients products then they would change. Or go down. I wonder… if we need to look for what is vegan, instead of what is containing stuff that is NOT vegan. Not tested on other beings than humans.
After reading this I checked one of the lipsticks I bought right after they were released. It DOES contain Carmine, so the line has never been Vegan. There could be some confusion on the part of who you initially spoke with about what Carmine is or what constitutes Vegan, but they should know better. This is definitely a stain on Flower and I am so sorry to anyone who has been misled by their inaccurate claims.
Hi Christine,
This is the first time I’ve heard of a product that has carmine listed in the ingredients and not “may contain carmine”! When I first talked to the person, I sent a list of commonly used animal ingredients (identifying them as such) and was told none were in the products. It is often that people don’t know what vegan means or what ingredients are, so I always send a list of potential ingredients.
When readers started reporting seeing “may contain carmine” I asked and was told that it was only because they used shared equipment and no carmine or other animal ingredients were used in any of the products. It’s frustrating to me that they were very specific about this more than once.
Hi Tashina. I tried clicking on your link above to read the most updated entry about Flower Beauty’s vegan status but the link had an error. Could you kindly update us what it’s all about?
Hi Linda,
Thanks for bringing that to my attention! I just updated the link, but you can also read the article here – http://logicalharmony.net/update-flower-beautys-vegan-status. Essentially, they are saying that the brand is cruelty free but most products are not vegan friendly. 🙁
This is such a shame, and a really bad move by their PR staff! Please don’t feel bad about this as we have all wrongly purchased products in the past and you had very good reason to believe they were vegan!
Wow. I’m actually shocked about this. I hope the people who stated it was a vegan brand can shed light on this because it really seems strange. I actually just recently purchased some new FLOWER products and have reviews pending, so I’m very glad I saw this before they went up categorized under “vegan.” Thank you for keeping us all up to date on this, Tashina. It’s really not right that you find yourself in this position where you’ve recommended and purchased so many products based on a false claim. You did thorough research and had no reason to suspect that the statements you received weren’t accurate – they were directly from the brand, and multiple sources! There’s got to be some explanation.
Such a bummer 🙁 I was just referring a friend who was asking me about vegan friendly makeup to your website & your Flower reviews. Thanks for keeping us up to date on this.
GEEEZZZ!! This news is incredibly frustrating. Reading their answers from the PR firm and cs team, there’s no room for ANY doubt; now this with nothing additional??
I just bought more mascaras & eyeliners last week, good thing still have the receipt, will be returning! I feel awful for you too!! I have told many people about this brand! Shame on whoever is to blame for misleading the vegan community!! I DO NOT want to support brands like this. Drew I hope you know about this!!!
take care Tashina and I know you’ll keep us up dated!
bks
WHAT?!?!?! This is incredibly upsetting. How can they have said over and over they are vegan, and just like that take it all back with a simple tweet and no further explanation? I’m extremely outraged for you and for the entire vegan community. I have a huge lust list for the line and now I have to scrap it. So angry!