My Cruelty-Free Journey
Disclaimer: Today’s blog post may be a bit more on the sensitive side as I’m going to discuss my journey to becoming vegetarian & cruelty-free, which does involve an unfortunate amount of photos & videos of animal cruelty in many forms. I’m just going to tell anyone who is starting to read this, that although I won’t necessarily go into vivid detail of what I’ve seen, I will definitely be discussing it and why it made me so upset - so if you are not comfortable reading about this, I’d suggest stopping here.
Many people ask me when they find out that I’m vegetarian, why exactly I don’t eat meat - is it due to dietary restrictions, or moral reasons? And let me tell you, it’s absolutely for moral reasons. When I was 12, I decided I was going to become vegetarian because I loved animals so much, I didn’t want to eat them anymore. Of course, being 12, I couldn’t really successfully navigate eating a vegetarian diet, and it was a difficult thing for my family to process at the time, so I gave that up for the time being. Fast forward a few years, I decided again to become vegetarian, and now here I am, five years later and still eating a vegetarian diet. A lot brought me to the decision to change my diet up again, so here is that story:
Where It Started
To start, I have to say ever since I was a kid, I always just absolutely adored animals. I was lucky enough to grow up with a dog, and she was truly a one of a kind pet - there’s really no way to put how special she was to me. With having such an amazing dog like this in my life, I ended up having such a soft spot for animals, and always felt like it was my job as a person who can make a change, to do whatever I could to stand up for animal injustice. When I was around 10 years old, we had to write a speech about a topic of our choosing, where I selected Animal Testing in the Cosmetic Industry as my topic as it was something that was extremely important for me to talk about and educate others on. When I was 13, I had to do another public speaking assignment, so once again I chose the same topic, but of course, re-wrote it and applied more recent facts to the dialogue. Third time really is the charm because I then chose this same topic again in college for my Communications course.
Shortly after I did this course, a documentary came out on Netflix by the name of Blackfish. When I saw it come up, I took a look at the description and knew I had to watch it. If you’ve seen the documentary, you know it’s all about the life of a SeaWorld orca named Tilikum, who definitely did not live the life he deserved. It was a life filled with sadness, pain and doing tricks for his food, and all because he was one of the unlucky baby orcas ripped away from their mothers years prior. I won’t go immensely into detail of the documentary, but I do recommend you watch it and learn about why supporting zoos & aquariums like SeaWorld is something we should all learn to avoid. Once I watched this movie, it was like a fire was lit under me, and I felt more passionate than ever to fight against what these poor animals endured for our entertainment & pleasure. I don’t live anywhere near SeaWorld, but I’d definitely visited Marineland before, blindly thinking that the animals there were well taken care of, so I vowed never to go there again. Of course, I knew that wasn’t enough - I almost instantly made the choice to start the process of only purchasing & using cruelty-free cosmetics. It was definitely something I always kept in mind before, but I would definitely buy the occasional item that wasn’t cruelty-free. Not anymore.
The Process of Going Cruelty-Free
Now, I must say to you - if this is something you’re considering, there’s two things you need to keep in mind. One - this is not an overnight change. Make up can be expensive, and it takes time to be able to afford to replace this make up in your kit. You also don’t want to waste either, so if you’re looking to switch up your make up to being completely cruelty-free, finish whatever you’re using first. The change is the important part, not how quickly you do it. And the second thing - don’t be too hard on yourself. Like I said, this is not an overnight change by any means, and finances aside, it takes time to find products that you like and work for you. Just because something is cruelty-free, doesn’t mean it’s what’s going to work for you, and your skin.
Going cruelty-free is more than just changing up your make up, however. There’s tons of other things you don’t think of initially either, like make up brushes, shower products, shampoo & conditioner, body cream & even nail polish! So when I say this is a long process, believe me, it’s a long process. An excellent source for finding out which brands are cruelty-free (and which ones aren’t) in a wide variety of areas including make up, skin care, shower products, nail polishes & everything in between is Cruelty-Free Kitty. She also has tons of information of what different certifications there are, and much more - I highly recommend checking out her blog.
Another thing to be aware of when making these changes to your collection is that some companies over time do change their stance so that they can sell in the Chinese market. If you aren’t aware, China is a huge part of why animal testing in cosmetics is still around as they legally require testing on animals before a product can be sold in their market. So, while you’re looking for brands that are cruelty-free, there’s two things I recommend doing - one, check the Sephora China website. If a product or brand shows up on there, you know it’s not cruelty-free. And two, if a brand’s website says something along the lines of “we don’t test on animals unless require by law”, that’s also a red flag that their product is sold in China.
Changing my Diet
After a while, I wasn’t feeling satisfied with my change. I felt like there was more I could do, and this is when I decided to cut meat from my diet. First, I started with removing pork & beef, which was relatively easy for me to do as I didn’t really eat a lot of pork or beef products other than the odd hamburger or side of bacon. When I was comfortable with this, I then decided to stop eating chicken & turkey, which was a little more difficult of an adjustment for me as that’s what my family ate most of the time as the meat for our dishes. Whenever I was really wanting chicken fingers, or to add some chicken to my salad for protein, I just reminded myself why I choose to keep meat off my plate, and that absolutely helped, and still even continues to help me in staying on my vegetarian path. Regardless of what you may think, a lot of vegetarians & vegans don’t necessarily choose to eat the way they do because they “don’t like meat” - quite frankly, I loved meat, but I love animals more than the way they taste.
I’d love to be vegan, however, like I’ve mentioned in one of my older blog posts, I have some dietary restrictions that make it borderline impossible for that to happen on a full-time basis. However, whenever I find a vegan cheese or milk that I can eat, I’ll opt to purchase that when I can. Whenever I feel discouraged, I remember that a little change goes a long way, especially when more people do it! If you’re someone reading this thinking “I could never go vegetarian/vegan - I like meat too much, I like cheese too much”, you don’t have to completely give something up to make a change. A meatless Monday, choosing almond or soy milk instead of 2% in your coffee - it all adds up, and makes a difference. If you keep in mind that you, and thousands of other people are doing these same things, you realize how many animals are being saved with your little changes. If you do decide to cut meat out, or go vegan, I promise you’ll be surprised how quickly you get used to not having meat in things that you usually would have had meat in before. I actually can’t stand having meat replacement in spaghetti sauce now because of it!
How I Continue to Improve & Grow
This blog post is called My Cruelty-Free Journey, and it’s something that I’m still on. It’s something you’re always going to have to research, and discover new things about. Like I mentioned above, some companies change their stances on if they are cruelty-free or not, and sometimes new things are discovered that you need to take into account when selecting products. It’s definitely something that requires a lot of work but it’s worth it. Something that I’m personally still struggling with finding a good quality cruelty-free product is gel nail polish. Unfortunately, it’s been really difficult for me to find something that works well for me, so I’m currently just continuing to use brands that I know do test on animals - which does break my heart, and this is why I don’t get my nails done as often as I used to.
I know - that was a lengthy one. Animal welfare is something that is extremely important to me, and something I am always looking to educate others on, if they’d be open to hearing me out about it. I hope this post did exactly that for you, if it is something you were curious about, but didn’t know where to start, and I hope it inspired some of you to change up your lifestyle a bit, whether it be one vegetarian-only day a week, changing to cruelty-free make up, or maybe even taking a bigger leap, and changing your lifestyle entirely. If you got to the bottom and are reading this now, thank you for reading this long blog post. Until Friday! Xo.
