30+ Best Cruelty-Free Makeup Brands For High-Performance
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I love animals, and it hurts my soul that animals still get tortured and killed each year for animal testing. We’re talking about more than 100 million animals in the US alone.
Unfortunately, one huge industry is responsible for a big chunk of the animal testing that takes place, and that’s the beauty industry.
For years and years, animal testing has been practiced worldwide. The first time someone ever wrote about animal testing was in 1628. Back in the day, people thought that animals didn’t feel pain, so they started testing several things on them. We all know now very well that animals do feel pain.
Animal testing for drugs and cosmetics exists because governments must establish whether a product or ingredient is safe for public health before allowing it on the market. For decades, this practice has been prevalent all over the world and has been the accepted method of testing ingredients for “safety,” not only for drugs but also for cosmetics.
Thanks to technology, animal testing is no longer necessary, and many animal rights organizations are proving this to the public, laboratories, and individuals. There is even more to celebrate: more and more beauty brands are removing animal testing from their practices, so shopping cruelty-free isn’t so hard anymore!
However, if you’re new to the cruelty-free beauty world or you find the amount of products overwhelming, I get it. That’s why I created this post where I’ll mention 30+ cruelty-free makeup brands that are amongst my personal favorites.
Mind you, these are not the only cruelty-free brands out there, thankfully! For the full list of makeup, skincare, haircare, and bodycare brands, check out this Cruelty-Free Beauty Brands A-Z list.
30+ Best Cruelty-Free Makeup Brands For High-Performance
Anastasia Beverly Hills
Anastasia Beverly Hills is a renowned brand that has committed to cruelty-free practices. Known for its high-quality brow products and vibrant eyeshadow palettes, it’s a favorite among makeup enthusiasts who care about cruelty-free beauty.
Fenty Beauty
Fenty Beauty breaks the mold with inclusive shades and killer formulations. Cruelty-free and founded by Rihanna, this brand doesn’t disappoint. Every product from their Pro Filt’r Foundation to their Gloss Bomb shines without harming animals. Feel good, look fierce.
bareMinerals
bareMinerals wants you to feel good about your beauty choices. They create clean, conscious products that benefit your skin and the planet. They’ve banned over 2,500 ingredients, including 1,400+ banned in the EU.
With 71% of their products being vegan, they ensure ethical sourcing of ingredients and use FSC-certified paper for their cartons. Plus, 1% of their orders go towards changing women’s lives. bareMinerals’ mission goes beyond just makeup.
Jones Road Beauty
Jones Road by Bobbi Brown offers cruelty-free, clean makeup essentials that deliver. Their products are free from harmful ingredients and suitable for all ages. Moreover, they offer some unique products, such as their Miracle Balm. Their products are simple yet effective!
Kosas
Kosas combines cruelty-free, clean beauty with high performance. The brand focus is on using natural, skin-loving ingredients that work. Kosas products are free from parabens, phthalates, and other harmful substances.
Their minimalist packaging reflects their straightforward approach to beauty. With Kosas, you get makeup that’s good for your skin and looks great too.
Buxom
Buxom is a fantastic choice for those seeking cruelty-free makeup. Known for their plumping lip glosses and vibrant eyeshadows, Buxom ensures that none of their products are tested on animals.
Chantecaille
Chantecaille is the luxury option for the cruelty-free crowd. Certified by PETA and free from a testing parent company, this brand blends opulence with a good conscience. Their philanthropy boosts awareness and funds for endangered species. Makeup that looks good and feels good? Yes, please.
Summer Fridays
Summer Fridays knows that conscious beauty is essential. The brand started off with cruelty-free, vegan skincare that works but is slowly expanding into makeup as well.
Their clean products are packed with good-for-you ingredients, and their packaging is as sustainable as possible.
Danessa Myricks
Danessa Myricks Beauty is a standout in the cruelty-free makeup industry. Their innovative and high-quality formulas are perfect for anyone looking to elevate their beauty routine without compromising on ethics.
Rose Inc
Rose Inc. focuses on what’s in their products, not on what they leave out. Their clean beauty products feature active ingredients that give you visible skincare benefits. They’re 100% vegan and cruelty-free and prioritize sustainable packaging.
Em Cosmetics
Em Cosmetics is a wonderful example of a cruelty-free makeup brand that combines high-quality products with ethical practices. Founded by Michelle Phan, their range includes everything from vibrant eyeshadows to silky foundations.
Glossier
Glossier is a popular brand known not only for its minimalist packaging but also for its commitment to being cruelty-free. Their products are designed to enhance your natural beauty without harming animals.
Hourglass
Hourglass offers a luxurious range of cruelty-free makeup products that don’t compromise on quality. Known for their innovative formulas and gorgeous packaging, Hourglass cosmetics are perfect for those who want to indulge in beauty while staying true to their ethical values.
ILIA
ILIA Beauty believes in the power of balance. It merges safe naturals with proven synthetics to create effective, cruelty-free, and clean beauty. Since 2011, it has been pushing for innovation and sustainability while never hurting animals in the process.
IT Cosmetics
IT Cosmetics, founded by Jamie Kern Lima, offers cruelty-free makeup designed for sensitive skin and problematic conditions.
Known for their skincare-driven products like the award-winning CC+ Cream, they collaborate with plastic surgeons and dermatologists to ensure safety and effectiveness.
Their range includes solutions for various skin issues infused with skincare benefits. Additionally, IT Cosmetics is involved in social initiatives supporting women.
Jouer
Jouer is a cruelty-free makeup brand founded by Christina Zilber, focusing on quality, chic packaging, and celebrating individuality and confidence. Known for its luxurious, functional products, Jouer emphasizes high-quality, clean ingredients that are free from animal testing.
Many products are ideal for sensitive skin and enriched with nourishing elements like Vitamin E and hyaluronic acid. Jouer offers an inclusive range of shades and textures, perfect for diverse beauty needs.
Kjaer Weis
Kjaer Weis blends luxury and sustainability. Their certified organic, refillable products feature chic packaging and effective formulas. Kjaer Weis proves that luxury can be cruelty-free, clean, sustainable, and beautiful. Indulge in makeup that respects your skin and the environment.
Kylie Cosmetics
Kylie Cosmetics is stepping up their clean game. They’re committed to creating vegan, cruelty-free makeup with safe ingredients. Their trendy, high-performance products now come with the added benefit of being clean. Beauty meets responsibility in Kylie’s world.
r.e.m. beauty
r.e.m. beauty by Ariana Grande offers clean, cruelty-free makeup. They focus on innovative, high-quality formulas that deliver. r.e.m. beauty proves that you can get glamorous, high-performance makeup without compromising on clean ingredients.
Lawless
Lawless is a standout cruelty-free makeup brand founded by beauty guru Annie Lawless, known for its “clean AF” beauty principle, avoiding over 1,500 potentially harmful ingredients.
What sets Lawless apart is its holistic approach to beauty and wellness, driven by Annie’s background as a certified health coach.
The brand emphasizes transparency, clearly listing all ingredients on packaging, and aims to advance a more ethical and cleaner beauty industry. Lawless provides high-quality, cruelty-free products trusted by both novices and pros.
LYS Beauty
LYS Beauty stands for Love Your Skin, and it shows. Their products are clean, vegan, and cruelty-free, designed to cater to diverse skin tones. LYS Beauty combines luxury with inclusivity, making high-quality clean beauty accessible to all.
Melt Cosmetics
Melt Cosmetics, founded by Lora Arellano and Dana Bomar in 2012, is a trendy and reliable cruelty-free makeup brand popular among beauty enthusiasts for its bold, vibrant colors and high-quality products.
Known for their stunning eyeshadow palettes like the “Rust Stack,” Melt Cosmetics offers products that blend effortlessly and are richly pigmented. Beyond eyeshadows, they provide an array of makeup products, including long-lasting lipsticks.
The brand prioritizes vegan formulations and inclusivity, often collaborating with makeup artists and influencers to cater to various skin tones and styles.
rhode skin
rhode skin by Hailey Bieber emphasizes minimalism and efficacy. While rhode skin by Hailey Bieber started off as a skincare brand only, the brand is now expanding to color cosmetics. Their clean, vegan products focus on simple yet effective skincare. With rhode skin, you’ll get a glowing complexion using thoughtful, responsibly sourced ingredients.
Milk Makeup
Milk Makeup brings clean vibes with high energy. Their products are vegan, cruelty-free, and made without sulfates, parabens, and phthalates. Milk Makeup focuses on easy, multi-use products that let you express yourself while being kind to your skin.
Natasha Denona
Natasha Denona is a luxury makeup brand known for its high-quality, cruelty-free products. Renowned for its stunning eyeshadow palettes, the brand offers vibrant, blendable colors suitable for both dramatic and everyday looks.
Additionally, Natasha Denona provides a range of makeup essentials, including foundations with diverse shade options, and highlighters that offer a radiant glow without an oily finish.
Merit Beauty
Merit embraces a holistic clean approach. Their products are safe for your body, skin, and planet, avoiding hormone and endocrine disruptors.
Vegan and cruelty-free, they meet EU and Clean at Sephora standards. Merit focuses on minimal, effective beauty with eco-friendly packaging.
Patrick Ta Beauty
Patrick Ta, a renowned celebrity makeup artist, launched his own makeup brand, Patrick Ta Beauty, in 2019. The brand quickly gained popularity for its glamorous, glowy products and commitment to being cruelty-free.
Patrick Ta Beauty is designed to meet high entertainment industry standards while being user-friendly for everyday makeup lovers. The brand emphasizes inclusivity with a range of shades suitable for various skin tones, making it a favorite for conscientious consumers who value both ethics and quality.
Saie
Saie isn’t just about looking good—they’re about doing good. From sustainable packaging to climate-neutral certification, Saie embeds sustainability into everything.
Their formulations meet stringent EU standards, ensuring you get safe, effective, clean beauty while never hurting animals. Saie proves that high standards don’t mean compromising on quality.
Tarte Cosmetics
Tarte Cosmetics prides itself on high-performance naturals. Their clean, cruelty-free products offer vibrant colors and long-lasting wear. Tarte emphasizes eco-friendly packaging, proving that sustainable beauty is both fun and functional.
Too Faced
Too Faced is a highly regarded makeup brand known for its whimsical packaging and commitment to being cruelty-free. Founded by Jerrod Blandino and Jeremy Johnson in 1998, the brand aims to bring fun and imagination into the beauty industry.
Recognized globally, Too Faced offers high-quality products like the Better Than Sex Mascara and Peach Perfect collection, maintaining a cruelty-free status certified by PETA.
Makeup By Mario
Makeup By Mario creates industry-standard, cruelty-free products. This brand fires up your routine with makeup artist-based products. Mario knows what he’s doing, and we love that it’s cruelty-free.
Tower 28
Tower 28 Beauty was born out of necessity. Founder Amy wanted solutions for sensitive skin and couldn’t find them, so she created her own.
Tower 28’s products are non-toxic, free of sensitizing irritants, and packed with calming, nourishing ingredients. Everything is vegan and cruelty-free—because your skin deserves only the best, minus the fuss.
Urban Decay Cosmetics
Urban Decay is well-known for its bold colors and unique product names. They proudly offer cruelty-free options, ensuring you can look fabulous while being compassionate towards animals.
Rare Beauty
Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez emphasizes authenticity and inclusivity. It offers products for all skin types and tones, including best-selling products like its Soft Pinch Liquid Blush, Liquid Touch Weightless Foundation, and Positive Light Highlighter. Rare Beauty is 100% vegan and cruelty-free and supports mental health initiatives through its Rare Impact Fund.
As you can tell, there are lots of different makeup brands to choose from when it comes to buying cruelty-free high-end makeup. If you want to take this a step further and go completely vegan, please check out my post about 7 awesome high-end and 100% vegan makeup brands.
Animals Used For Testing Purposes
A lot of different animals are getting used for testing purposes; nope, it’s not just bunnies and rats. Here is a list of the most common animals used for testing:
- For cosmetics tests, most animals used are bunnies, guinea pigs, mice, and rats. They often die from the experiments.
- Dogs (often times beagles) are often used in medical research. They undergo particularly invasive tests for cardiology, endocrinology, and bone studies.
- Cats are often used in neurological studies. Half of the tests cats are subjected to can “cause pain or distress.”
- Non-human primates, especially macaques, monkeys, baboons, and chimpanzees, are used in many experiments. They participate in toxicology, AIDS, hepatitis, reproduction, and xenotransplantation tests, among others. Over 70,000 non-human primates are tested yearly in the United States and European Union.
In the meantime, we know over 7,000 safe ingredients that cosmetic brands can use to formulate their beauty products, and several alternative methods are available that don’t require animal testing. Nowadays, technology makes it possible to spare millions of animal lives.
We, as consumers, play a huge and important role in this. We can make a difference if we pay closer attention to what brands we buy from.
By choosing cruelty-free brands, you’re letting beauty brands know that you don’t want to give them your money unless they change their animal testing policies.
How Can We Determine If A High-End Makeup Brand Truly Is Cruelty-Free?
Great, so you’re on the hunt for a makeup brand that loves animals just as much as you do. But with labels and marketing tactics, it can get a bit tricky to figure out who’s genuinely cruelty-free. Here’s the lowdown:
The Five Must-Know Criteria
- Finished Products: The makeup brand you’re eyeing doesn’t test its final products on animals. Period. Neither do their third-party labs.
- Ingredients: Cruelty-free means no animal testing at any point in the supply chain. Ingredients should be as animal-friendly as the finished product.
- Suppliers: It’s not enough for the brand itself to avoid animal testing. Their suppliers also need to conform to these requirements.
- Third Parties: If anyone else is handling their products for them, they should also be free from any form of animal testing.
- Required by Law: They don’t sell in countries that mandate animal testing, like mainland China, unless under specific cruelty-free conditions.
SHOP THE POST
Wow! What an amazing list! Thanks for doing the research and sharing! I have sampled ilia and loved it!
Thank you so much! It’s lovely to hear that you liked Ilia, I really want to try them!
I have to admit that when I buy makeup I don’t pay attention if it’s cruelty free or not. At the same time, I feel guilty when I buy from a company that I know for sure is not cruelty free. It’s probably obvious I’m a big Urban Decay and ABH fan, so I’m glad they are on the list. We all need to be more conscious if we want to change the industry.
xoxo Amanda | theaestheticedge.com
I totally feel you, it wasn’t something I paid attention to first as well and that’s why I still have some products in my collection. I agree, the least we can do is be more conscious!
It’s so important to be a conscious consumer when it comes to what brands we support. I’ve been trying to finish my last few products that aren’t cruelty free and exclusively support ethical brands. All of the brands you mentioned in this list are some of my favorites -I hope every other you didn’t mention will transition to being cruelty free in the future! Thanks for sharing all of this information!
melissakacar.blogspot.com
That’s so amazing, you’re doing great! I’m glad to see that a lot of brands do take cruelty-free seriously, but it would be great if other brands would transition to cruelty-free in the near future as well.
This is so helpful, I’m like you, I buy mostly brands that here are cruelty free but sell in China, still, I’m trying to learn. The statistics are horrible though, those numbers are so high
I know, I hate to see those high numbers! The best thing that could happen is China changing it laws which I hope will happen as soon as possible.
Thank you for this massive useful post! I always try to use as much cruelty free makeup as possible – but sometimes I really can’t replace what I have and I do feel very guilty for it, for example my main foundation now is L’Oreal’s 24h Matte Cover foundation, it works soooo well for me and has SPF and is affordable, I really hope L’Oreal stop selling to China so they can be considered cruelty free one day!
I feel you, it’s sometimes so hard to stop using products because they’re working very well for you but it’s not cruelty-free. I do believe in trying the best you can but it doesn’t have to be perfect.
This was a great post. I’m not always sure what it means when a brand is cruelty-free, but the parent company is not? Like, what does that mean overall? Great to see some of these brands completely cruelty-free, with no other stipulations. Go Milk Makeup for having Leaping Bunny certification! I’m yet to try anything from this brand, but this has definitely pushed me to want to try some Milk Makeup products more than ever.
Also, thanks for sharing the really helpful resources at the end. Really appreciate it and it’s definitely something I’m going to look at! xx
I love animals more than humans and they deserve but don’t have equal rights. It breaks my heart to see how they are victimized by humans who feel entitled. People believe they are superior so they kill them for food, sport and being homeless. which actually makes them inferior. Wish that I could do something to fix the situation but I cannot financially afford it, also do eat meat since the killing hasn’t stopped. Torturing and killing critters should be illegal.
Do you know you know anything about Monat Global products?
Monat is Leaping Bunny certified, which means that they’re cruelty-free. However, Monat is an MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) company and most of these companies live off of unethical practices. I’m not the biggest fan of MLM companies so I would recommend reading into it before purchasing. Either way, it’s your own decision and they’re cruelty-free. 🙂