Cruelty Free Skincare
Yes! Of course Très Spa is cruelty free skincare. I would think our logo and our tag line would be a ‘give-away’ but we know it is important to make the statement clear and loud. So there is no doubt about it, we only use plant based ingredients. There is no need to test our products on anyone or anything to know its potential side effects. Our ingredients have been used for centuries so the record is very long! In some cases hundreds of years long.
Being Cruelty Free is something you may tend take for granted, we kind of did, but turns out it’s a pretty big deal after all. With the advances we have in software and other technology, it’s hard to believe that animal testing still exists. But, sadly it does. It’s still practiced in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry (as well as others) and sometimes that bleeds over into skincare (since it is a cosmetic) where they share some similar ingredients.
What Does Cruelty Free Mean
So what does it mean when a company says their products are cruelty free? It means that no animal was tested using the product. It is not a controlled claim in that there is no governing body but it is generally accepted and a common practice. However, the cruelty free standard only goes so far. It does not expand beyond the manufacturer of the finished goods. Historically it did not reach into the entire supply chain for each and every one of the ingredients that goes into that end product. So the claim falls a bit short of the mark in our opinion (but we do have some pretty high standards).
Synthesized Compounds Must Be Tested
Think about it. Every time the scientists take to the lab and cook up that new enzyme or synthetic compound to make you look younger or sexier, they have to test it. It has to be tested for effectiveness and safety. How do you think they do this? Unfortunately, they turn to subjects that cannot speak out for themselves. However, there is new ground being made in farming human skin to test cosmetics on.
New compounds designed in a lab don’t have the same advantage as natural ingredients do, century’s worth of human “hands on experience”. Nature, in its unaltered state or un-isolated, the totality is well known and records have been well established. Now, there are some that would argue that testing has been done in the past and they may be correct. But that testing would have been decades ago.
Beyond the testing requirements for the new science, we wonder about the collateral damage these new concoctions may have. They need to be manufactured so what kind of waist is created? And what happens when the synthesized compounds reach the eco-system? Did you know that there are places in the world that have banned some skin care products due to their deleterious effects on the environment?! Sun screens and Bug repellents are notorious. *If you want an environment friendly bug repellent, you should check out our Hiker’s Heaven line.
We Are 100% Cruelty Free Vegan Company
At Tres Spa, we’re glad we chose to go 100% natural. No additional testing required by the supply chain to know the safety and effectiveness of our ingredients. Since all of our natural compounds are well known, the only testing we ever do is on willing customers interested in trying new blends.
Taking control of the Cruelty Free claim
With the advent of a couple of self policing verifying agencies, consumers can have a little more confidence when choosing brands to support. Groups like CCF, Leaping Bunny, and PETA do look beyond the finished product. They verify the ingredients that go into the finished product be cruelty free. They have managed to stretch the reach of cruelty free so when you see the logos on products or marketing material for a company, you can have more confidence about their stance on Cruelty Free.
We verified and double checked all of our vendors and ingredients from the very beginning. Eventually we reached out for certification. That is how we became recognized by PETA as a Vegan and Cruelty Free Company. You can read more about that here.
We have all seen the labels and the marketing material stating that a product is hypoallergenic. What makes it so, what does that mean, and why say it? It’s a marvelous word signifying the product is less apt to cause an allergic reaction. It sounds so clinical, official and sterile. Like nothing bad could happen to you if you used this product. The word hypoallergenic makes you think that this is skincare you can trust.
cosmetics. You make a line of foundation make up. You have a long list of ingredient compounds that go into this foundation product. Say you start getting feedback that there is a part of the population that is having an allergic reaction (usually slight redness, heat, or itchiness). You want happy customers! So you go back to your lab and you isolate the compound that may be the perpetrator and you either change your formula a bit and re release as “Re Formulated” or you run a new line with a new set of compounds and call it “Hypoallergenic”.
With Très Spa, we feel natural plant based is the best for you and for the planet. So we create products in Harmony with Nature and we disclose all of the ingredients on our website as well as our labels. Très Spa products serve a broad spectrum of customers and some that suffer from allergies to various ingredients as well as those with particularly challenging skin conditions like psoriasis and eczema. So even though Très Spa products could be considered hypoallergenic, we choose not to actively market that. We feel it is far better to use natural and botanical ingredients in our formulations and disclose what each ingredient is then let you, the consumer, choose what works best for you. After all, you know what you are allergic to.
