Cruelty free?

Posted by Ming the Merciless as Guest Author, Kang & Ming, Ming the Merciless, Resources, Tentacle Wagging

Let me preface this by saying neither Ms. K nor I are fanatical, Birkenstock-wearing, VW-driving, unwashed PETA*-flogging hippies. I was a member of my college’s student environmental action group for a while but I kind of lost interest about three meetings in, when they started planning protests that involved people dressing up like fish and infiltrating paper manufacturing plants. (I’m a little unclear to this day whether the plan was to perform the infiltration while disguised as fish.)

Instead, we’re the target market companies like L’Oreal and Revlon are aiming for. Thirty-something, middle class professional women. And we both make an effort to buy ecologically friendly, animal friendly products. As I write this, I’m finishing my cup of fair trade, ecologically friendly coffee. Made using a recycled paper coffee filter. (And this weekend, I’m going to pick up one of the reusable ones, if they finally have the right size.) Apparently they aren’t listening to their markets because we do still care about animal testing, too.

This morning I had an email from Ms. K, who is planning on reinventing her look and was trying to find information on whether Lancome cosmetics are cruelty free.

The sad answer to that appears to be, “No.” Apparently Lancome’s parent company L’Oreal at one point claimed they were done animal testing (back in the late ’90’s/early ’00’s) when caring about animals was hip and trendy but so far have refused to provide adequate follow-up information to cruelty-free organizations and may still require ingredient suppliers to provide animal test data. So no, L’Oreal/Lancome products cannot be safely assumed to be cruelty-free.

In an effort to clarify the cruelty-free status of Lancome, I’ve gone directly to the source and sent the following communication via their web site:

Dear Lancome;

I have recently been trying to verify your policy on animal testing but am unable to locate this information on your web site. Cruelty-free organizations list your parent company L’Oreal as either testing on animals or requiring unnecessary animal testing data from ingredient suppliers. Can you please clarify the following questions:

Does your company test its products on animals?
Does your company require its ingredient suppliers to provide animal testing data?

As a consumer, this information is important to my purchasing decisions since I strongly believe animal testing for cosmetics to be both unnecessary and highly unethical.

Sincerely,
Ming Merciless

I’ll keep you posted on what they have to say.

L’Oreal does also now own The Body Shop, and according to cruelty-free organizations, those products still do not employ animal testing or ingredients tested on animals. I’m personally ambivalent about using “cruelty-free” products from a company whose parent company has tried to masquerade as cruelty-free without actually making any changes. Perhaps if they see a demand for their cruelty-free brands it will convince them that it is important to consumers, though.

It’s not like going cruelty-free is going to cost a company market share. Nobody has ever stood in the cosmetics aisle looking at mascara saying, “Goddamn, don’t they have anything here that’s blinded some bunnies?”

For those of you that want to see where your products of choice fall (or find alternatives for the ones that fail), here are some useful links:

The Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics
Caring Consumer: A Guide to Kind Living

As a footnote:
Lancome and L’Oreal are also not listed as signers of the Compact for Safe Cosmetics, where companies promise to eliminate carcinogenic, mutagenic, and toxic chemicals from their products. For those of us in Europe, the EU Cosmetics Directive means that companies have to do this anyway for products sold here. Not so for the rest of you, I’m afraid.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics Signers

*More on this later.

Coffee with Madame .fs & High Priestess Kang

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Kang & Ming

It’s a known fact that High Priestess Kang does not do well as a house frau.  As I haven’t been feeling the best and I’m inundated with stuff to do before the wedding, I have been homeward bound for the past few days.  There is never a positive result from home confinement for the High Priestess.

This morning (or this afternoon in Sweden), while sharing coffee with Melly, the Today Show was running in the background.  I hear singing, look up and see a man with a giant codpiece staring me in the face.  GIANT CODPIECE!!! 

Chat transcript is below.  Sadly, I couldn’t find the exact codpiece that smacked me in the face, so you will have to use your imagination for the visual.

(15:51:33) High Priestess Kang: Guy wearing cod piece is singing on the Today Show.
(15:51:41) High Priestess Kang: Is that really suitable for morning programming?
(15:51:45) High Priestess Kang: It’s rather pronounced.
(15:51:46) High Priestess Kang: lol
(15:52:50) Madame .fs: hahahahah
(15:52:51) Madame .fs: omfg
(15:52:52) Madame .fs: lol
(15:53:03) High Priestess Kang: I mean…think of a really campy video from the 80s
(15:53:11) Madame .fs: hehehe
(15:53:14) High Priestess Kang: and then hold a magnifying glass up to the appropriate area
(15:53:21) Madame .fs: lololol
(15:53:22) High Priestess Kang: HAI! LOOK AT MY C0CK
(15:53:38) Madame .fs: C0CK! I HAS ONE!!!!!
(15:53:45) High Priestess Kang: HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
(15:53:51) High Priestess Kang: MY C0CK DOESN’T LOOK SAD
(15:54:36) Madame .fs: hahahahh
(15:54:57) Madame .fs: NO THAT IS NOT A BANANA I AM HAPPY TO SEE YOU
(15:55:22) High Priestess Kang: omfg
(15:55:26) High Priestess Kang: *falls over screaming
(15:55:35) High Priestess Kang: YOU WISH YOUR C0CK IS AS BIG AS MY C0CK
(15:56:17) Madame .fs: I AM PROUD OF MY C0CK
(15:56:30) High Priestess Kang: YOU WANT MY C0CK
(15:56:39) Madame .fs: I AM ADEQUATE.
(15:56:46) High Priestess Kang: hahahahaha
(15:56:49) Madame .fs: heehee
(15:56:50) High Priestess Kang: I WILL SATISFY YOU
(15:56:54) High Priestess Kang: lolllllllllllllllllllllllll
(15:57:10) High Priestess Kang: I NEED AN EXTR-Y LARGE CONDOM!!!!
(15:57:10) Madame .fs: MY TALENT IS IN MY PANTS
(15:57:17) High Priestess Kang: omfg
(15:57:23) Madame .fs: hahahah
(15:57:27) High Priestess Kang: *screeches and cries
(15:57:34) Madame .fs: you need to find a picture of this guy
(15:57:44) High Priestess Kang: *cries
(15:57:45) Madame .fs: so we can put it on kangworld with the log
(15:57:53) High Priestess Kang: I was just thinking that
(15:57:59) High Priestess Kang: I’M HUNG LIKE A HORSE!
(15:58:58) Madame .fs: I WANTED TO BE A PORN STAR
(15:59:25) High Priestess Kang: *laughs and cries moar
(15:59:29) High Priestess Kang: *nostrils flare
(15:59:43) High Priestess Kang: DID YOU SAY COD PIECE OR C0CK PIECE?
(15:59:48) Madame .fs: HAHAHAHHA