The Greatest Guide to Living Cruelty Free: Burberry's fur confession

The Greatest Guide to Living Cruelty Free: Burberry's fur confession

Burberry's fur confession

Sadly, there are several big name brands who think using fur is acceptable. British firm Burberry are one of them.

Most people can see the beauty in animals keeping their own fur. Burberry think you should wear it.
Photo is courtesy of PETA

This is the email Ithat was sent to them on behalf after I signed and online petition -

Subject: Stop selling Fur

Greetings,

i understand that your stores are selling many fur or fur-trimmed items, made with real fur. We are sure that if you knew what goes on behind the scenes in the fur industry, you would not want these cruel products to be a part of your collection.

Millions of animals, including rabbits, raccoons, and foxes, are painfully trapped in steel-jaw leg hold traps each year. Those who don't freeze or starve are usually beaten to death or suffocated when the trapper arrives hours or days later. Animals held captive on fur farms spend their short lives crowded in wire cages where they suffer from inadequate water, disease, parasites, and stress. The animals are killed by anal electrocution, poisoning, or suffocation. Those who don't die immediately are skinned alive.

In 1998, 94 percent of the people who responded to a survey in Cosmopolitan magazine said animals should not be killed for their fur. People assume that a scrap of fur on the collar is fake and I assure you that many would be appalled to learn that it is real. I trust that you cannot, in good conscience, support this unnecessary torture inflicted upon millions of animals each year.

I hope you will decide to eliminate all fur from your stores after considering this information. Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,


Jennifer Thomson
Millport, United Kingdom

This is the reply I got from Burberry. Note the way they claim their fur is humane and refer to fur as 'natural hide.' This is to make people think its the same as leather and to distance what they sell from fur.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your feedback regarding Burberry's use of natural hides.

By way of background, Burberry is an international luxury brand producing apparel and accessories with a distinct British sensibility for over 150 years. As a company with a strong outerwear heritage, there has been, and will continue to be, occasions where consumer tastes demand the use of natural hides.

Burberry will not use natural hides if there is any concern that it has been produced using unacceptable treatment of animals. We source natural hides very carefully, safeguarding the correct ethical standards and traceability. Specifically, we source fur from furriers who are well known for upholding high standards of ethical treatment of animals and share our concerns about animal welfare.

Burberry believes in the accurate labelling of all garments containing fur, to clearly inform consumers about the product prior to their purchase. As a result Burberry is a signatory to the US government's Truth In Fur Labelling Act.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us on this subject and giving us the opportunity to reply.

Kind regards,

Burberry Customer Service

Tel: +44 (0) 20 3402 1444

Email: customerservice@burberry.com

www.burberry.com

www.facebook.com/burberry

www.twitter.com/burberry

www.youtube.com/burberry

www.artofthetrench.com

Are your makeup brushes made of fur?

We all know that cosmetics can be tested on animals, resulting in cruel experiments.

But were you also aware that your favourite makeup brushes may contain animal hair and even, would you believe it, fur?

Here are some facts –

1. Make up brushes can be made of horse hair. This hair comes from horses that are slaughtered first.
2. Squirrels are also hunted for their hair. This ends up in makeup brushes.
3. Mink and sable brushes come from these animals that are killed for their fur.
4. Goat hair is also used. The goats are shorn like sheep, but often the people doing it are paid by the amount of hair they can get and this can lead to goats being sheared so quickly that they sustain cuts, gouges and other injuries.
5. Brushes made with animal hair and fur, often cause skin irritation. Synthetic materials are kinder to the skin.
6. There are companies that don’t use animal by-products in their makeup brushes. They include The Body Shop, Urban Decay, Origins Natural Resources and Hard Candy. 

Tip - The more expensive the make up you buy, the more likely that the brush supplied with the product is made of fur.

Top Bananas a.k.a the celebrities standing up for animal rights

Awards for top services to animals

1. Forest Whitaker. Fine actor, fine man. He’s been a vegetarian for 25 years and his son is a vegan.

Reason he’s a top banana – He’s a Hollywood top hitter and an unlikely vegetarian.

He and his daughter did a short film for PETA http://www.peta.org/features/Forest-Whitaker-Vegetarian-Testimonial.aspx  promoting a vegetarian diet.

2. Leona Lewis. Great singer, great gal. A vegetarian herself, she speaks out about everything from fur to the industrial farming of dairy cows in Britain in mega dairies where cows would be treated like battery hens.

Reason she’s a top banana – Shunned a whopping £1million the opening of Harrods because they sell fur - http://tinyurl.com/3mvrhy

Lewis also has her own vegan friendly clothing range - http://tinyurl.com/5twb3qa

She made sure that the cruelest food on the planet, foie gras, was taken off the menu at the Brits - http://tinyurl.com/6za5u52

3. Joaquin Phoenix. Quite possibly the sexist vegan on the planet. Phoenix is so strict about his beliefs that he insists that for all his movies all ‘leather’ garments are synthetic.

Reason he’s a top banana – He’s a spokesman for PETA and in a photo shoot for Prada, he refused to wear shoes because they were made out of leather.

He has fronted a number of PETA campaigns, including one highlighting the trade in exotic skins - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxbrMk4-ZmA&tracker=False

4. Alicia Silverstone. The beautiful actress looks so healthy and is a great advert for veganism. She’s been vegan for over ten years.

Reason she’s a top banana – A staunch supporter of PETA, see this link

http://features.peta.org/AliciaSilverstoneVeganPSA/index.asp

she wrote a book about her diet aptly called The Kind Diet, that was crammed full of recipes.

5. Paul McCartney. Animals have a friend in the Beatle.

Reason he’s a top banana – What could be better for animals that having such a high profile advocate? This is an example of a man using his power for the tight reasons. Other stars take note.

Macca helped publicize the use of cat and dog fur in clothing - http://tinyurl.com/exmyw

5 Simple ways to go Cruelty Free

There are things we can all do to make this world a kinder place.

Here are just five of them -

1- Don't buy a dog, adopt one. The more people who buy dogs the more unwanted dogs there are.

2- Buy only cosmetics that are NOT tested on animals and check that applies to the ingredients too. This is important, because many companies might not test the finished products on animals, but they will test the ingredients. 

See the Leaping Bunny site for details - http://www.leapingbunny.org/indexcus.php and http://www.gocrueltyfree.org/

3- Never ever, under any circumstances buy fur.There is no such thing as cruelty free fur.

4- Buy Fair Trade products as much as you can. Fair Trade, means the producer and workers have been given a fair price.

5- Use humane rat or mouse traps. These will get pests out of your home alive without harming them.

The cruellest things on the planet

I'm currently doing the research for my cruelty free book for a chapter on things that can never be cruelty free. Even if you're not veggie or vegan, simply by avoiding the filthy five you can be kinder to animals.

Here's my top five of particularly cruel foods -

1- Foie gras - force feed a goose or duck eat until it's liver gets several times its natural size. Then kill it to eat.

2- Veal - Put a baby calf in a crate and deprive him or her of sunlight and a mother and don't ever let this baby go outside.

3- Fur - Furry animals in cages. Some, if they're lucky, will be dead when they are skinned. Others will be skinned alive.

4- Lobster - How would you like to be tossed alive into a burning pot and cooked alive? If you did that to a pet the cops would cart you off.

5- Down (sometimes called feather down, duck down or goose down) – It may be well known that fur production is cruel but what many people don’t know is that goose and duck down involves animal cruelty. Many birds have their feathers plucked whilst their still alive, especially in China the major down manufacturers in the world.