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T H E M U A V E G A N B E A U T Y R E P O R T

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R e p o r t c o m m i s s i o n e d b y M U A C o s m e t i c s

Wr i t t e n b y C h l o e B u r c h a mW i t h t h a n k s t o E m - J

W H Y W E ’ R E V E G A N

We’re very excited to finally be able to shout from the rooftops that we’re now a 100% vegan brand – something we know our customers have been waiting for.

Since MUA launched we have been a proudly cruelty-free brand; it is a natural evolution to be totally animal-friendly by becoming 100% vegan.

We could have taken this step before now, but we didn’t believe in compromising the breadth of product available to our customers, nor the quality of our products, by removing non-vegan items or replacing non-vegan ingredients with

those that weren’t up to scratch. We’ve worked carefully to source the very best vegan alternatives to tricky ingredients like beeswax and lanolin (read on to hear more!) to ensure that the MUA collection is still of the very best quality – and value for money - our customers have come to expect, without being harmful to animals.

We are very proud of making this change and we hope that by giving so many more people access to high quality, affordable, animal friendly makeup we can make a positive contribution to evolve consumer behaviours in the beauty industry.

We hope you enjoy reading our report!

Siobhan McCarthy, MUA Marketing Director

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A N I M A L - F R E E M A K E U P – T H E M O V E M E N T W r i t t e n b y E m - J

The art of doing our make-up is something special.

It’s a beautiful thing really. A ritual we have every morning.

A daily routine that shifts our headspace from sleepy bed head to slay the day queen. Each morning we find our faces staring back at us in the mirror, a time to accept and love the outside vision of ourselves. The opportunity to reinvent our look each and every day.

The power of a shimmery eyeshadow, a pop of pink lipstick and a fleeky highlight is enough to give us a spring in our step and a sparkle in our eye for the rest of the day.

Let’s rewind to this morning...As you peer into the mirror…you reach for that big, soft, fluffy brush. Swirling the bristles round and round your bronzer,

you buff the powder into your cheeks and instantly feel like you’ve had a week on the beach.

Sounds pretty elegant doesn’t it?

Now, imagine the same thing, but you’re not holding a makeup brush, you’re holding a dead squirrel, wiping it all over your face.

GROSS.

Shocking but very, very common. Most high street beauty brands have been using squirrels, goats, badgers and various other animals in their make-up brushes for years, and still do. Technology has come a long way and manufacturers can now easily make synthetic hair perform in the same way as real animal hair. However these brands still support the pain and suffering of animals by continuing to make and sell these brushes.

Sadly, it does not just stop there, the majority of make-up products traditionally include dead animals or animal by-products.

The movement towards brands turning to cruelty-free is huge and very exciting! The frustrating thing is that ‘cruelty-free’ only refers to animal testing. A product can be classed as cruelty-free but include dead animals. Is it not ‘cruel’ to boil an animal to put it in our lipstick?

This being the case, we need to raise awareness of how important it is to buy cruelty free products which are also animal free and vegan friendly.

As a makeup artist, I have come into contact with thousands of brands who use many animals in their products. Trends and making money are more important than animal welfare for them. The performance of vegan ingredients are improving day by day. Wonderful brands such as MUA Makeup Academy have invested time

and money into researching vegan alternatives, proving that there really is no need for animal suffering in beauty anymore.

As a makeup artist I feel I have a duty to set trends and influence others to make ethical decisions and to make it easy for them.

Those of us with a voice need to speak out for those who do not - the animals.

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T H E M U A V E G A N B E A U T Y R E P O R Tb y C h l o e B u r c h a m

Vegan beauty is a sector that’s expanding at an enormous rate within the beauty industry. As scary as it is, we can’t escape the issues concerning the environment, the problems with sustainability and concerning cruelty to animals happening around the world. This has resulted in veganism growing from a trend amongst the few, to becoming a hugely important movement within mass consumerism.

More than anyone else, it’s millennials and Gen-Z consumers who are driving this force for change. 42% of Britain’s vegans fall into this 15-34 year old category. And whilst beauty is a sector where we can easily make a difference, the importance of making cruelty-free and sustainable choices doesn’t just stop there. From food, right through to fashion, Veganism (and in

turn, the vegan beauty category) is growing at an astonishing rate.

Whilst living a completely vegan lifestyle isn’t for everyone, there are easy ways we can all make a change. At the time of writing, #vegan has over 84million hits on instagram. From food recipes to beauty switches, making small, vegan-friendly tweaks in your life can make a massive impact on everything from your eco-footprint, to the suffering of animals around the world.

In 2018 alone, sales of Vegan beauty increased by 38%, showing that people are wanting to invest in vegan products. Sure, it can be hard to completely eradicate every single non-vegan product in your beauty bag… but thankfully, it’s getting much easier.

*From over 700 customers surveyed

62%

49%

3%

of people questioned buy vegan beauty products despite not following a vegan lifestyle

cited wanting to do something to help the environment as their reason for buying vegan

said they just don’t care whether their beauty products are vegan or not

W H Y A R E P E O P L E B U Y I N G V E G A N B E A U T Y ?

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W H A T I S V E G A N B E A U T Y ?

So what is vegan beauty? At its core, vegan beauty means that the product contains no animal bi-products or ingredients. Although you might not think of beauty and personal products containing animal bi-products in the first place: skincare, makeup and fragrance often contain certain ingredients that have been derived from animals.

Common ingredients we’ve all heard of like ‘collagen’ for example, have historically always been derived from animals. Then there’s the ingredients that go into our lipsticks, mascaras and eyeshadows that we’ve never really heard of, or even put much thought into. Animal bi-products are found within so many of our beauty products. But what does this really mean?

Well let’s take collagen, for example. Sure, it’s a pretty common ingredient found in many skincare products and plumping lip glosses… but have you ever thought of how the ingredient is produced? Collagen is derived from

the tissue, bone and skin of animals (usually cows) before being ‘cleaned’ and mixed in with your moisturisers. Yep, then it finds its way onto our face and lips without a second thought. Pretty gross, right?

Lanolin, a widely-used emollient found in skincare, cosmetics and, most often, lip products, is a grease (similar to human sebum) that’s extracted from sheep’s wool. Imagine coating your lips in human grease! It’s easy to think that lanolin is a cruelty-free ingredient, as it comes from the wool of sheep as they are shorn. However, the majority of the time the sheep have been slaughtered for their meat, and their wool and lanolin in turn are a by-product of this process.

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C A R M I N E c o c h i n e a l b e e t l e e x t r a c t

C a r m i n e a l s o c a l l e d c o c h i n e a l , c o c h i n e a l e x t r a c t , c r i m s o n l a k e o r c a r m i n e l a k e , n a t u r a l r e d 4 , C . I . 7 5 4 7 0 , o r E 1 2 0 , i s a p i g m e n t o f a b r i g h t - r e d c o l o r o b t a i n e d f r o m t h e a l u m i n i u m s a l t o f c a r m i n i c a c i d ; i t i s a l s o a g e n e r a l t e r m f o r a p a r t i c u l a r l y d e e p - r e d c o l o r.

T h e p i g m e n t i s p r o d u c e d b y d r y i n g , c r u s h i n g , a n d t h e n b o i l i n g t h e b o d i e s o f c o c h i n e a l b e e t l e s t o e x t r a c t c a r m i n i c a c i d .

Then there’s carmine. This extremely common ingredient is found in everything from lipsticks to blushers, as it’s an ingredient that produces a red pigment. But where does it come from? Well astonishingly carmine is made from the crushing of female beetles, something that may have been the best method for Cleopatra, but do you really want dead beetles in your lipstick?

And if any of your blushers, bronzers, eye shadows or nail varnishes contain guanine you might want to know this: guanine (that produces the sparkly pigment in makeup products) is created by scraping the scales off dead fish.

Yup, really. Dead, fish, scales. Vom.

Whilst it’s pretty shocking to realise where these ingredients come from, until recently, buying vegan beauty has actually been notoriously hard because non-vegan alternatives were hard to come by.

Since its launch, MUA has always been committed to producing products that are 100% cruelty-free. But, whilst the end goal has always been to produce a 100% vegan cosmetics range, it’s taken time to be able to find alternative vegan-friendly ingredients that won’t compromise on the quality of products— until now.

68% agreed there was confusion around ingredients and admitted they wouldn’t know whether an ingredient was vegan or not without checking it first

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I S V E G A N B E A U T Y T H E S A M E A S C R U E L T Y - F R E E ?

Because of its very nature, vegan beauty products are often cruelty-free. Without the proper certification it is an assumption that shouldn’t be taken for granted however.

Cruelty-free means that the product itself, nor any of its ingredients, has

been tested on animals. Of course, vegan beauty means that the products themselves don’t contain any animal derivatives or by-products, but that doesn’t specifically mean that the product, or its ingredients, haven’t been tested on animals; it’s something you should always check for.

*From customer research

34%thought vegan products automatically qualified as cruelty-free

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T O P 5 B E S T S E L L E R S

Velvet Matte Liquid Lipstick - £3

PRO / BASE Fixing Spray - £4

Shimmer Highlighters - £3

Eyeshadow Palettes - £5

PRO / BASE Foundation - £5

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G R E E N W A S H I N G

When you’re buying into different subsections of beauty it’s important to be aware of Greenwashing. Trending terminology (‘clean’, ‘organic’, ‘vegan’) is often used by brands in order to market their products to attract consumers. You may have spotted some beauty brands marketing their products as ‘vegan’, despite not being cruelty-free. Thankfully, there’s mounting scepticism about the claims made by brands, and younger consumers in particular want to know exactly what they’re buying. In particular, Gen-Z and millennial customers are acting as consumer watchdogs, calling out brands that are found to make claims that they

can’t live up to – making it essential for beauty brands to be transparent whether their products are truly animal-free or not.

So how can you tell if a brand is greenwashing, and how can you avoid it? To ensure you’re buying genuine vegan and cruelty-free products, it’s pivotal to look for industry-regulated logos. Keep an eye out for logos from PETA, the the Leaping Bunny and The Vegan Society to ensure your products are cruelty-free and/or vegan. These logos also help brands ensure the clarity and consistency when marketing their products, so if a brand is worth trusting, it’ll come with the proper labelling.

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B E E S W A XC e r a A l b a

Today, we’re more empowered and informed than ever. We want transparency from brands: from the ingredients used, to how they are sourced.

Given today’s current climate of political unrest, unstable economic certainty, the global rise in mental-health issues and worrying climate change figures, it’s not surprising that we’re all looking for a way to be more ethical in our lives, and that starts with the way that we shop.

Veganism is one of the easiest ways to adopt a more ethical lifestyle. The number of vegans in the UK has grown fourfold in the past four years from 150,000 to 600,000. Whilst this figure only makes up 1.16% of the UK population, it’s reported that up to a third of the

British population are trying to cut down on their overall consumption of meat and animal-sourced products . In fact, research suggests that by 2025, vegans and vegetarians will make up a quarter of the British population.

W H Y U S E V E G A N P R O D U C T S ?

B e e s w a x ( c e r a a l b a ) i s a n a t u r a l w a x p r o d u c e d b y h o n e y b e e s o f t h e g e n u s A p i s . T h e w a x i s f o r m e d i n t o s c a l e s b y e i g h t w a x - p r o d u c i n g g l a n d s i n t h e a b d o m i n a l s e g m e n t s o f w o r k e r b e e s , w h i c h d i s c a r d i t i n o r a t t h e h i v e . T h e h i v e w o r k e r s c o l l e c t a n d u s e i t t o f o r m c e l l s f o r h o n e y s t o r a g e a n d l a r v a l a n d p u p a l p r o t e c t i o n w i t h i n t h e b e e h i v e .

I t i s o b t a i n e d b y m e l t i n g a h o n e y c o m b w i t h b o i l i n g w a t e r a n d t h e n s t r a i n i n g a n d c o o l i n g i t .

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Used to contain Carmine

Used to contain Beeswax

Used to contain Beeswax

Used to contain Beeswax

Used to contain Lanolin

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Whilst living a 100% vegan lifestyle can be a big change, switching out your beauty products to vegan-friendly alternatives is an easy switch you can make.

But it’s not only our ethics-concious lifestyles that are driving this demand for vegan beauty products. As consumers, we demand cruelty-free products as a standard now – we want to know where our products are being made and how their ingredients are being sourced. If so many of us now insist on cruelty-free makeup to avoid harming or utilising animals in our beauty regime, we should naturally insist on our products being vegan too. Buying vegan-friendly beauty is just another way we can ensure that no animals have been harmed at the expense of our products.

Products can be misleading and are often labelled as containing ‘no animal ingredients’. However, things like honey, lanolin, beeswax and buttermilk are often still found within these products. Making sure your products are 100% vegan-friendly is the easiest way to guarantee their manufacturing hasn’t impacted cruelty or suffering to animals.

43%said they weren’t vegan but did care about products being tested on animals. So why would you not care whether the ingredients have come from animals too?

T O P 5 H A R D E S T P R O D U C T S T O M A K E V E G A N

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L A N O L I N S h e e p w o o l e x t r a c t

L a n o l i n ( f r o m L a t i n l ā na ‘ w o o l ’ , a n d o l e u m ‘ o i l ’ ) , a l s o c a l l e d w o o l y o l k , w o o l w a x , o r w o o l g r e a s e , i s a w a x s e c r e t e d b y t h e s e b a c e o u s g l a n d s o f w o o l - b e a r i n g a n i m a l s . L a n o l i n u s e d b y h u m a n s c o m e s f r o m d o m e s t i c s h e e p b r e e d s t h a t a r e r a i s e d s p e c i f i c a l l y f o r t h e i r w o o l .

H O W H A S T H E V E G A N B E A U T Y I N D U S T R Y C H A N G E D ?

Whilst we’re all on a mission to be more environmentally and ethically responsible, vegan beauty isn’t a fad. MUA has seen this huge demand for shoppers wanting to invest in vegan beauty, not because it’s a trend, but because it’s becoming a major shift in consumerism. In fact, research suggests there’s been a 175% increase in vegan product launches from July 2013-June 2018 , driven by consumers wanting to align their beauty routine with the rest of their lifestyle views and choices.

In essence: as consumers, we want to know what we’re buying – and what our own personal impact, and that of the brand we’re buying from, is.

Social media campaigns like Veganuary, combined with a larger

conversation around eco-conscious living and the cruelty towards animals, has meant that as a society, our attitudes towards veganism have shifted massively over the past 10 years. In popular culture, vegans used to be seen as ‘hippies’. But nowadays, it’s no longer a uncommon choice to lead a vegan lifestyle, it’s an intelligent, positive force for change.

Of course, there’s no denying that switching to a vegan lifestyle can be hard — but small changes can make a big impact. What we need is a million people making eco-concious, animal-friendly and sustainable choices imperfectly, rather than a handful of people doing it perfectly.

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F o r f u r t h e r i n f o r m a t i o n , i m a g e s o r s a m p l e s , p l e a s e

c o n t a c t t h e M U A p r e s s o f f i c e

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