vegansaurus!

Monthly box subscription…of vegan beauty products!  »

You know we at Vegansaurus loves boxes of surprises! So far, the subscription boxes we’ve come across have been mostly about food, but Ethical Ocean has a new subscription box of vegan beauty products! I’ve been assured that the True Beauty box is always all-vegan. 

I’m kind of a beauty product fanatic so I’m pretty stoked! It’s $30/month but you get mostly full-size stuff instead of all samples. And besides being vegan, they also say, “Your beauty box will NEVER include synthetic preservatives, emulsifiers, fragrances or colors. Our products are phthalate and paraben-free.” So that’s nice.

OMG I love surprises!

Dr. Bronner’s is the world’s best soap! Read all about it!  »

I can’t remember the first time I used Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap. Maybe in college, around the first time I went vegan. I just remember loving it—and when I discovered the lavender scent? Sold for life.

Over at Inc.com, Tom Foster wrote a great in-depth profile of the company, and guess what: It’s exactly the combination hippie-activist independent eco-friendly company you imagined it to be the first time you giggled at the label. A few highlights:

• They soap contains 100 percent organic ingredients.
• They’re so serious about Fair Trade they bought farms to grow their ingredients according to Fair Trade standards—coconut oil in Sri Lanka, palm oil in Ghana, peppermint oil in India, and “a partnership that combines olive oils from farmers in the West Bank and Israel, and has become a symbol of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence.”
• They led the hemp industry to sue the federal government in 2001 in protest of the Bush policy of “seizing shipments of hemp seed and hemp oil at the Canadian border”—and won.
• They pay all their workers everywhere a living wage, and all the big corporate salaries are capped.
• They plan on staying independent forever.

Go read the entire article RIGHT NOW, it is three pages of you in happy shock because companies can be this amazing and turn a big profit. There is good in the world, you guys, and it starts with soap.

[photo by Max Edmands via Flickr]

L’Oréal wants to end animal testing in the cosmetics industry!  »

Ecouterre brings us news that L’Oréal, the world’s largest cosmetics company,* is partnering with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to “expand the scope of the federal agency’s ToxCast assay tool, which screens environmental substances for potential human toxicity.”

L’Oréal already tests with “reconstructed human tissues, automated platforms, and molecular modeling,” using a ToxCast program would make the process faster and even safer. Someday we will live in a world where everything you apply to your face and hair and skin and nails is 100 percent cruelty-free, you guys! We can beat our faces without benefiting from bunny torture! And we’ll all look as perfect as Rachel Weisz!

*They own so many beauty companies, it’s bonkers.

Ask a Vegansaur: Vol. 04  »

This is how I’ve felt for the past week. I pretty much had the plague, yo, but today I finally left the house after about a week in seclusion and had no excuse not to write another edition of Ask a Vegansaur.

Lenore asks: My vet told me that unlike dogs, cats are obligate carnivores and cannot survive or be healthy on a vegan diet. Do you know if this is true? Do most vegans who have cats feed them a vegan diet? Thank you.

Thank YOU, Lenore, for being so polite! This is a controversial subject. For my part, I feed my cat a very fishy diet because that’s precisely what our veterinarian said. Every vegan I know who provides for a cat does the same. According to some sources, a vegetarian or vegan diet fails to provide the nutrients cats need while the makers of vegan cat foods tend to disagree. Interests on the food companies’ side are obvious, and only anecdotal evidence supports the hypothesis that cats can be healthy on veg diets. I suggest following your vet’s instructions to keep your kitty healthy. Although the process of making carnivorous cat food is no better than that of harvesting meat for human consumption, once you sign on to take care of another animal, he or she should be your priority above the other animals in the world. Not to say that anyone should ignore them, but I think you get the point. On the other hand, dogs can be vegetarian, and rabbits, guinea pigs, and the like are veg by nature. If you’re considering adopting a furbaby but don’t want to feed him or her meat, consider these choices.

Nicole asks: I recently transitioned from vegetarian to vegan. I am having trouble finding products other than food that are vegan (i.e., makeup, chapstick, body/face washes) and was wondering if you could lend me a hand? Thanks!

Sure thing, Nicole! Here’s a list of companies that don’t test on animals, and here’s a list of companies that do. Looking for a specific company? Use this tool to search for it. If you’re not sure, take a gander at the list of ingredients on your current products. Watch out for these ingredients. Does that seem overwhelming? Take a deep breath! You’ll be fine! You’re just starting, so you’ll get more practice in identifying vegan and non-vegan items as time goes on. Beauty tip: Dr. Bronner’s Magic All-One soap works for my shower, cleaning, and even (in a pinch) toothbrushing needs, and Tom’s of Maine makes good toothpaste and deodorant. Finally, How It All Vegan! contains a variety of recipes for homemade cruelty-free beauty products.

Amanda asks: I think I accidentally ate meat at a restaurant outside of the U.S. Am I still a vegetarian?

Only if you want to be! Seriously, people should not be punished for true accidents — that is, incidents that result from no fault of their own. You’re away from home, and you’re starving. You do your best to ask what’s in your food, but the local language might not be your native one. You take a bite, you’re not sure, you eat it anyway because it’s food and it’s there. I can’t hate on you for that. Even the purest, most perfect vegans make mistakes. How you recover from them is most important.

Want to Ask a Vegansaur a question? Email me, and try not to be a jerk!

[Photo credit: Rex Features]

Vegan Beauty Market: All-vegan makeup store!  »

I’m kind of a Sephora addict (they get me with those samples!) so when I saw this online store on VegNews* I was so excited! I still am! Vegan stores are my favorite because it’s like you don’t have to worry about anything. No checking labels and looking up products on your iPhone, all the work is done for you!

Vegan Beauty Market looks pretty hype. The only problem is they don’t have a ton of options for each category. But at least you know everything is vegan! I like supporting vegan companies but I would love to see more mainstream brands with products that happen to be vegan on the site. Like with vegan food sites. Though they don’t really sell Oreos, do they. Shoe sites! Vegan shoe sites sell mainstream-brand shoes that happen to be vegan. So I wish it was like that—vegan brands and mainstream-brand vegan products.

I can’t tell if they give you samples And you totally get samples!. I love samples! I’m sample-obsessed! They also donate a portion of the proceeds to animal and environmental welfare organizations. That’s dope!

Things I am interested in: these multipurpose eyeshadow/blush/etc. powders from Herbs of Grace, coffee bean eye cream, and all these vegan brushes. New makeup brushes are THE BEST. I haven’t tried any of these, I’m just saying I’d like to. I’ll let you know if I do!

*Laura is a columnist for them! Got to disclose the facts because I’m way pro.