Sephora has become the go-to place for vegan beauty for many. It’s the home for the hippest vegan brands such as Youth To The People, Summer Fridays, and Milk Makeup.
Sephora has also a vegan filter in their online store that allows you to only view vegan products. Just tick a box on your ingredient preferences and see nothing but animal-free beauty.
We love buying vegan skincare and vegan makeup on Sephora. But Sephora’s vegan filter needs some serious rebooting. Here’s why you cannot trust Sephora’s vegan filter.
The Problem With Sephora’s Vegan Filter
When it comes to listing beauty products that are free of animal ingredients, Sephora’s vegan filter works just fine. If a product is listed as ‘vegan’ in Sephora, it will not include beeswax, collagen, or other common animal-derived ingredients.
The issue with Sephora’s filter lies in animal testing. See, a product cannot be called vegan if it’s tested on animals. Yet, Sephora’s vegan filter does not leave out companies like Algenist or Caudalie that still test on animals in countries where it is required by law.
Even Sephora Collection – the retailer’s in-house brand – markets most of its products as vegan on its platform. Yet, Sephora Collection is sold in China (where animal testing is mandatory) and the brand does not have a strict anti-animal testing policy.
A product cannot be called vegan if it’s tested on animals. Yet, Sephora’s vegan filter does not leave out companies like Algenist or Caudalie that still test on animals in countries where it is required by law.
Thus, nothing from Sephora Collection is really vegan even if it happens to use vegan ingredients. The same goes for Algenist, Fresh, Kiehl’s, and all other brands below.
It’s also important to note that Sephora’s vegan filter is as faulty as their ‘Vegan Skincare’, ‘Vegan Makeup’, and other equivalent pages which you can access from the store’s menu bar. Both have the same problem with listing brands that still test on animals.
❌ Not Really Vegan (But Listed As Vegan On Sephora) ❌
These brands on Sephora are NOT CRUELTY-FREE NOR VEGAN. These companies may still test their products on animals, so none of their products can be considered vegan.
Beware of these non-vegan brands on Sephora:
- Algenist
- Alterna
- AmorePacific
- Armani Beauty
- Bobbi Brown
- Bumble and Bumble
- Caudalie
- Fresh
- GlamGlow
- Gucci
- Kiehl’s
- Lancôme
- Laneige
- Make Up For Ever
- Nars
- Nécessaire
- Nudestix
- Origins
- Pat McGrath Labs
- Sephora Collection
- Viktor&Rolf
Can You Trust Sephora’s Cruelty-Free Filter?
Sephora’s cruelty-free filter works better than the vegan filter. It really lists companies that are either certified cruelty-free or fully transparent about their anti-animal-testing approach. None of the grey-area brands seemed to have slipped into the cruelty-free category.
Yet, the cruelty-free filter does not exclude products that include animal-derived ingredients i.e non-vegan products. In Sephora’s skincare category, out of 675 cruelty-free products, only 323 are also vegan.
So if you really want to find vegan products on Sephora that are not tested on animals, you will need to apply both cruelty-free and vegan filters.
If you really want to find vegan products on Sephora that are not tested on animals, you will need to apply both cruelty-free and vegan filters.
Summary
Despite the fault in Sephora’s vegan filter, there’s a wide world of vegan beauty to be explored on Sephora. From 100% vegan brands to cruelty-free brands with many vegan products, you can find high-quality vegan beauty products from this French-based retailer.
Sephora offers vegan skincare from Youth To The People, Biossance, Summer Fridays, and The Ordinary. You can also find a plethora of vegan makeup from KVD, Merit, Milk Makeup, Tower 28, and many other animal-friendly brands.
To be sure you are buying actually vegan beauty products on Sephora, just prefer products that have invested in a certified vegan label. That way you can be sure the product is animal-free as well as cruelty-free.
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