Snoqualmie

Brown rice and curried grass in your hair.

I tend to think that animal testing is actually a slightly more complicated issue than PETA would have people believe. It's true that I'm less than likely to take a job, oh, injecting artificial sweeteners into mice's eyeballs until they go blind. It just isn't my cup of tea. At the same time, I'm not quite willing to stand up and say that we should cease all animal testing of cancer drugs and either prescribe them untested to humans or abandon them entirely. (The rational but wicked side of me would like to point out here that the test mice for cancer drugs do have to get cancer somehow, after all, but that is outside the scope of this discussion.)

However, some uses are more clear-cut than others. At this point it's really not necessary to do animal testing for cosmetics. Honestly. Shampoo does not need to be cutting-edge, and the ingredients that are already in use have been tested exhaustively for at least the last half-century. We know they work, we know they're safe, and doing new tests and finding more new ingredients to test is just beating a dead... well, mouse.

The following cosmetics, toiletries and general nostrums are all not tested on animals. If you're like me and you have to look at the back of every damn bottle to see, this may save you time.

• Dr. Bronner's soaps (duh)
• Anything by Tom's of Maine, which at this point includes toothpaste, mouthwash, soap, deodorant, shampoo, and shaving cream
• Anything by Nature's Gate (shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste)
• Anything by St. Ives (lotions, face washes, shampoo & conditioner)
• Citre Shine hair styling products
• TreSemme shampoo and conditioner (cheap too!)
• No-Ad sunscreen
• Mane 'N Tail shampoo and detangler (some of the conditioners have lanolin in them, though)
• Trader Joe's Next To Godliness dish soap (but you can only use it on yourself if you're a dish)
• White Rain shampoo and conditioner
• Anything by Kiss My Face (soaps, lotions, face washes, shaving cream)
• V05 shampoo and conditioner (also, as Michele points out, cheap)
• Burt's Bees products (although they do contain beeswax)

I should point out that since I don't wear makeup my contributions to this list are more or less limited to cleaning products and detangling aids. Anyone with greater knowledge should feel free to share it.