L’Oréal and their Greenwashing

Hello and welcome back to my blog.

Today I’d like to talk about some of the biggest bullshit I’ve seen in the past weeks. I used a sample size shampoo by L’Oréal a few days ago and was surprised to see them claim it’s “vegan” and overall better for your health and the planet (no silicones, package made with recycled materials etc. ). Overall this sounds pretty good, but is it really?

While having vegan products is great and appealing to a (ever-growing) group of people, we also need to look a bit deeper into the issue.

L’Oréal is wildly known for their animal testing. In fact, that was the first brand I’ve known to be testing when I first switched to cruelty free products. Almost my whole make up collection consisted of their products. And that’s not all, they own brands like Garnier, Essie, NYX. (NYX however is cruelty free, they’re just owned by L’Oréal). So if you’re going all the way of banning brands and mother brands (also known as parent company) that test on animals from your bathroom, some might have to chuck everything out at once – been there, done that.

Which is why this whole “natural” line by L’Oréal – called Botanicals – is annoying me so much. How can you do so much good (vegan products and recycled packaging) but still be okay with testing on animals? Shouldn’t you ban this first before becoming vegan? Or at least do it at the same time? The hypocrisy is strong with this one.

I feel like a lot of beginners would fall for this, especially if they haven’t checked yet for which brands test and which don’t. They just see the “vegan” on the packaging and buy it without thinking twice. Good marketing, I must say.

Now my question to you: do you think this is a step in the right direction or are you not buying into this greenwashing thing at all? Let me know!