Animal welfare certification as a signboard for special cosmetics. When we stand in front of a shelf of products in a shop or look at the range in an online shop, we almost automatically reach for certified items. The printed seal tells us that a product meets certain requirements, guidelines or standards and is therefore of particularly high quality with regard to the respective criteria. We therefore know that we can trust the product. At least that is how it should be. The path to certification is long and tedious for the manufacturer. He has to sign a contract with the seal provider, submit the recipe, provide detailed information on the raw materials again and again after queries, and wait until the very strict and extensive testing is completed. Sometimes the whole process takes up to half a year.

Animal testing in cosmetics is clearly regulated after all

Among the most popular certifications among consumers are seals that prove that a particular product has not been tested on animals during the development process. However, animal testing of cosmetic ingredients has been banned in Germany since March 2009. Cosmetics whose ingredients were tested on animals after this date were and are no longer allowed to be sold. Until March 2013, however, there were a few transitional exceptions to this ban.

If a cosmetics supplier advertises with an animal welfare certification that signals freedom from animal testing, it demonstrates a commendable ethical responsibility in the eyes of consumers. After all, he has apparently voluntarily decided to do without animal testing. In reality, however, the whole thing is often not voluntary at all, because the law prohibits experiments with animals anyway. The certification is therefore in many cases superfluous and even misleading, because not all consumers are aware of the legal ban on animal testing. They therefore believe that they are buying the products from a particularly responsible supplier. The claim "Without animal testing" is then a so-called "advertising with self-evidence", which is not a positive distinguishing feature and is even fraught with some risks.

Please beware of advertising with animal-test-free or similar.

For some time now, numerous lawyers have felt called upon to take action against such cosmetics suppliers and to warn them off. This is not only annoying and time-consuming for the supplier, but also quite expensive. For example, they have to issue a cease-and-desist declaration and pay high fees. It is not uncommon for these to amount to 5000 euros per product. Although there are still uncertainties as to how far and whether basically all cases are unfair advertising as a matter of course, they still have to be checked extensively. If a product is advertised as free of animal testing without complying with the strict and complex requirements of the advertising permit, lawyers assume an unfair measure according to §5 para. 1 sentence 2 no. 1 UWG.

The alternative: Cosmacon's own animal welfare certifications

To save cosmetics suppliers inconvenience, legal disputes with lawyers and high costs, declarations such as "We love animals" or "We are good to animals" are an option. In addition, voluntary donations to well-known and reputable animal welfare organisations signal to the consumer that responsibility for animal welfare is being taken by reinvesting part of the profit.

With an animal welfare certification, this responsibility should and may also be shown to the outside world. And without a prior, gruellingly long and expensive processing procedure.

We at Cosmacon now also offer our own animal welfare certification. This guarantees customers a high level of safety, as all raw materials used are meticulously checked by an independent safety assessor for the seal. We have registered the Cosmacon animal welfare symbol as a trademark. Our customers are therefore welcome to use it. The inspection process for Cosmacon animal welfare certification takes a total of only ten working days and is thus completed much more quickly compared to the procedure of many other providers. We only charge you a one-off fee of 250 euros for the process and the animal welfare seal. This makes you independent of other seal providers and at the same time gives your target group a clear signal in the direction of animal welfare.

Cosmacon supports you with animal welfare certification

You would like your cosmetic products to carry an animal welfare seal, but don't want long waiting times, hidden costs and a lot of bureaucracy? Then turn to Cosmacon with confidence! We offer our customers our own animal welfare certification. Your products are tested according to scientific criteria and by an independent safety assessor. The process is quick and you retain full cost control, as we only charge a one-off fee of 250 euros per product. There is no easier way to show your target group that you care about animal welfare when developing products!