Monday 7 October 2013

fold: the fight against cosmetic animal testing


 this post turned out to be rather image heavy, oops!

over the summer, one third of my summer project was to research a topic or event that was important and create an artefact based on your research that in one way or another incorporated a fold. as soon as we were given the brief back in may, i knew instantly that i wanted to look into the ban on cosmetic animal testing that was passed in the eu in march because a) i found it interesting and b) it meant that in one way or another, there was room for bunnies in my work (which is always a good thing.)

my artefact is a sort of leaflet/infographic hybrid that would be distributed by cosmetic stores such as perhaps boots and lush within shopping bags to help educate their customers on the recently passed eu ban and the rest of the world's stance on cosmetic animal testing (which in most places is a little lazy, i discovered, tut.)

i decided to continue to practice with two things that i've previously struggled with - type and colour - and i think i'm finally ready to tell myself that i can work with type and colour in a way that is somewhat effective, hurrah! i also decided to come out of my comfort zone and ditch a paintbrush for a tablet pen in order to see where working digitally could potentially take my style, and although in parts it's been a bit of a slog, i think i'm finally starting to feel more comfortable with the idea of working digitally, and should hopefully over the coming months develop a stronger, more consistent digital style (although i will be picking my pencils and paintbrushes up along the way, too.)

since researching cosmetic animal testing and discovering which brands are happy to conduct animal tests where the government requires it (i'm looking at you, china,) i've been disappointed to realise that a lot of my favourite products are far from cruelty free. as a response to this, i'm currently on the lookout for new beauty products that are cruelty free to switch over to when i've used up the products i'm currently using, so if you have any cruelty free recommendations for haircare, skincare or make up, i would absolutely love to hear from you!
 

2 comments:

  1. This looks awesome! You should be really proud of yourself for it!
    However, I heard a while back that Body Shop products are/can be tested on animals. The reason they can get away with saying they don't is because a company bought them over -can't remember which one. To then get away with it the company that bought them over tests on animals under their name so that the Body Shop can continue saying they don't test on animals.
    It's really pretty rubbish to think of it. Just wanted to let you know!

    ohhayblogs.blogspot.co.uk
    Lauren
    x

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    1. hi lauren, i heard that too, apparently they're owned by l'oreal, it's all so, so confusing when the body shop still keeps their leaping bunny logo! :( at least now with the EU ban the rest of the world might follow so one day we can live in a totally cruelty free world! at least with the ban in place we can take comfort knowing that any new products we pick up from drugstore shelves are cruelty free, however even then it's still a totally different story for the companies behind the products on a worldwide scale! thanks very much for your lovely feedback and input :) x

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