Urban Decay Is No Longer Going to Sell in China & Will Remain Cruelty Free
Last month, Urban Decay announced that it had decided to change their stance on animal testing in order to sell in China. Today, Urban Decay announced that they are no longer going to proceed with this change!! Urban Decay will not be selling their products in China and will remain cruelty free. Both Leaping Bunny and PETA have decided to endorse the brand again.
Urban Decay has updated their Animal Testing Policy to read :
After careful consideration of many issues, we have decided not to start selling Urban Decay products in China. While several factors were important in reaching this decision, ultimately we did not feel we could comply with current regulations in China and remain true to our core principles. We know there are many progressive consumers in China who would embrace an opportunity to purchase non-animal tested products – our hope remains that we have the chance to offer Urban Decay products to these consumers someday in the future.
Following our initial announcement, we realized that we needed to step back, carefully review our original plan, and talk to a number of individuals and organizations that were interested in our decision. We regret that we were unable to respond immediately to many of the questions we received, and appreciate the patience our customers have shown as we worked through this difficult issue.
Since our founding in 1996, we have been committed to ending animal testing in the cosmetics industry. As demonstrated by the renewed support we have received from organizations like PETA and the CCIC, this principle remains at our core. Urban Decay does not test its finished products on animals, nor do we allow others to test on our behalf, and we require our suppliers to certify that the raw materials used in the manufacture of our products are not tested on animals. Urban Decay is proud to be 100% cruelty-free.
For all of my readers that are huge Urban Decay fans, I am so excited that they have decided to stick with their cruelty free ways! I do think that this really shows that you can change things if you are willing to speak up for what you believe in. If you follow Logical Harmony on Twitter or Like Logical Harmony on Facebook, you no doubt saw that I was tagging them in Facebook posts and tweeting at them about it. I know that I wasn’t the only one either, and it’s amazing to see the power that your voice really can have in these situations. You have it! Don’t be afraid to use it!
Despite these changes, I am undecided about if I am going to continue to promote Urban Decay on Logical Harmony. The main reason for this being that even after they announced that they were going to start testing on animals in order to sell in China, Urban Decay was still trying to market some of their products as vegan. The majority of those who live a vegan lifestyle would agree that a product that is tested on animals is not vegan. If they were willing to market products that had been tested on animals as vegan, how true are they to their original morals about animal testing? Was this decision based purely on the idea of losing money by selling in China? This sudden change of heart makes me question if I will be able to trust Urban Decay in the future.
All that being said, I am very glad that Urban Decay has decided to go back to their original stance on animal testing. I think that it’s wonderful to show that our voices do have power. Even if it is just our wallets that they are listening to.
What do you think about Urban Decay changing their mind about selling their products in China?
A big thank you to reader Ibby for letting me know about their updated stance earlier today! I really appreciate your tweet! You can also read another post about this on Phyrra – Breaking News! Urban Decay Decides NOT to Sell in China.
Images : WeHeartIt
Wow! I’m so happy UD listened to the people. Unfortunately, back when they announced the Chima thing months ago, I literally threw out over $500USD of their products I had and went and bought all MAC makeup because I have sensitive skin and health issues, only to see a recent post on here about MAC not being good either. I am heartbroken and broke now. I guess I have to be au natural until I can afford another spree. Thank you got such informative work!!!
I actually don’t care about urban decay as their product still have some ingredients that I don’t like,but I do care about any company that stated as cruelty free.I support those companies! Good job UD! And thanks for this post!I’ll refer to this blog some of my upcoming post later. Love your blog!:)
Thanks for sharing, Ibby!
I understand why you wouldn’t want them to sell in China… I agree, it is a good thing to select cruelty free brands.
What I guess I am confused about is why do you review products– like Wet and Wild– that are made in China? What about the horrible working conditions of the people there and promoting the export of American jobs overseas? And that fact that China requires animal testing?
Wouldn’t not buying or using cosmetics made in China send China a message about its working conditions and testing requirements?
Just a disconnect that has been bugging me for a while…..
Hi!
I can completely understand where you are coming from. However, this blog focuses on being animal friendly and not human rights. While I do agree that those are things I don’t necessarily want to support, it’s not the focus of this blog. This blog is about providing people with information about cruelty free and vegan cosmetics and other beauty items.
Also, please note that there is a difference between “Made in China” and “Sold in China”. Products that are simply made in China are not tested on animals. It’s only products that are sold there that are required to be tested on animals. Many truly cruelty free brands manufacture their products in China but don’t sell them there, so they are never tested on animals. I wrote a post about this a few weeks ago – http://logicalharmony.net/animal-testing-and-china/
I will NOT use Urban Decay again. The mere fact that they even considered doing business in China (not animal friendly at all) makes me not trust them.. There are too many other companies I want to give my business to that do not ‘sell out’..or ‘think about it’. UD is off my list no matter what.
Hi Karen!
I stopped buying Urban Decay products a while ago. They started to switch over vegan formulas to non-vegan formulas. They lost me as a customer at that point. However, I think that their flip flopping on vegan forumlas combined with them flip flopping on their stance on testing on animals is more than enough to make me not trust them in the future.
I’d love to hear of some other brands that you would like to hear more about! 🙂
Thank you lovely Girl for Your link to my website.
Very thankful
And mostly Happy about Urban decays bold choice – for us – Right choice – but gutsy for them
Ibby
You’re very welcome! Thank YOU for Tweeting at me about this!
I agree that it’s good that Urban Decay decided to not sell in China. At the end of the day, the deciding that testing on animals (no matter what their reason) is a positive thing.
I’m really happy to hear about Urban Decay’s decision to cancel their “China” project…
Maybe I’m just naive, but I really want to believe the amount of mails we sent them, as well as all PETA’s friends, were (at least part of) the reason 🙂
I’m still going to buy Urban Decay! It’s my favorite brand and I think they deserve their costumers back for taking the right decision 🙂
Hi Joana!
I agree. I think that, no matter what, it’s good that they changed their mind. Fingers crossed that it stays this way! 🙂
I completely understand what you mean in regards to them labeling their stuff as vegan whilst having announced they will start selling in China but on one hand, maybe they didn’t think there was anything wrong or misleading about that because as of that time, the products were not YET being tested on animals, and it was only in the works.
But maybe that’s giving them too much credit!
But either way, I’m really excited that this change happened. It really does show that consumers have power!
Hi Jana!
My main concern with the whole vegan issue is that they had already changed their written stance on animal testing, and on the same page were talking about offering vegan products. They definitely offer fewer vegan products than they used to. It’s clear that it’s not a main concern of theirs.
In the end, it’s just good that they changed their mind and are not going to test on animals!
I do think that since they are one of the only brands carried by Sephora that uses the term vegan and they publish their ingredients as well, I’ll continue using them and promoting them. I understand your points, though.
I think a lot of people see vegan as an “ingredients only” endeavor – right down to food-only vegans who won’t examine anything else they consume/wear/etc so I can understand how their definition wouldn’t be as inclusive as we’d like.
There are so many other brands on this site who don’t necessarily identify anything as vegan who are getting lip service so it’s hard to hold UD to this one-up standard because they were trying to partially cater to a vegan market but weren’t doing it quite right in this case.
I do give them credit for being transparent (enough) about their actions and for changing their actions. Which is another reason I have for still supporting them. I fully understand why some people would no longer want to support them – but I do feel like the flip side to that is making sure their good deed goes unpunished.
All that said, I”m curious as to what their true reason was for pulling out of the Chinese market. Hopefully their statement was at least 70% transparent.
Hi Jesse!
Thanks for your comments. 🙂 I agree that it’s hard for them to hold themselves to the standards that I have for vegan. It just shocked me that they were trying to still come across as an animal friendly after just announcing their plans to start testing on animals! It felt like they were using it as a way to say, “See! We’re not that bad!”
I don’t mind if brands don’t call themselves vegan, but if they are going to market things with a label that says “vegan” then they should at least be completely cruelty free. Otherwise, it just seems like a complete PR move and a moot point that they have products that don’t contain animal ingredients.
I appreciate them being up front about their actions regardless, even their decision to sell in China. It’s a transparency that a lot of companies, such as MAC, have not had and I respect it. I just hope they decided not to sell in China for the right reasons and won’t change their mind later down the line.