A legal tussle over animal testing in Europe is threatening to jeopardize what has become a key marketing tool for cosmetics companies: selling their shampoos and skin creams as “cruelty free.”
The European Union banned animal testing for cosmetics in 2013, a move that was cheered by activists and sparked a string of copycat legislation elsewhere. But the European Court of Justice is now considering a case in which the EU’s chemicals regulator asked a manufacturer to conduct animal tests on two cosmetics ingredients to address concerns about worker safety.