Dark Places

When I first started writing my Cruelty Free book, I had no idea of all the dark places I would have to re-visit.

Places where animals are caged and treated appallingly before, terrified out of their wits and knowing what's coming (nobody can tell me different), they are killed by someone not fit to live on the same planet as them.

Places where animals are given poison just so some vacuous person can be wrinkle free and look like a freak. Who looks good with an ironed face?

Places where someone would rather wear the carcass of a dead animal than see the beautiful animal it belongs to in the wild.

I read all these things and I think I am in the middle of a nightmare. This cannot be real, but it is.

How can we call this humanity?

The ugly truth about Botox

I'm writing a chapter for my book on things that can never be cruelty free.

This is the shocking truth about Botox, much loved be celebrities  -

1. The increased popularity of Botox (Botulinium) injections has led to a sharp increase in the number of LD50 (LD stands for lethal dose) tests being carried out on mice. In these tests, mice are injected with Botox, which is a toxin and causes paralysis and eventually death by suffocation.
2. For each batch, a hundred mice are poisoned and observed for days. The test is carried out to see how much of the toxin it takes to kill half of the mice.
3. There are non-animal tests that are considered to be more reliable, but until they come into widespread usage, Botox is not cruelty free. This is because when licenses are given for botox toxicity testing, no distinction is made between batches intended for the cosmetic and pharmaceutical sector (Botox does have medical uses). This way, even when it’s used for cosmetic (non-medical reasons) companies manage to completely bypass the ban on testing cosmetics on animals.
4. Fact – Following a legal challenge from the BUAV (the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection) in 1999, the UK government announced that LD50 tests would no longer be licensed except on 'exceptional scientific grounds.’ It is for you as an individual to decide whether having a wrinkle free forehead is worth the animal suffering.