Interview with Dr. Carol Treasure about animal & animal-free testing for cosmetics

In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Carol Treasure, one of the co-founders of a UK based business called XCellR8. XCellR8 is a laboratory exclusively devoted to animal-free safety and efficacy testing for the cosmetic, personal care and chemical industries. Their goal is to see an end to efficacy and safety testing in these industries conducted on animals by, not only a more ethical testing method, but a more accurate and reproducible model using donated human skin cells. Throughout the interview, we spoke about how Carol got started with her business, the work they do, the history of animal testing within the cosmetic industry, cruelty-free certifications on brands and more. It’s an important note, which we talked about during this conversation, that the Cosmetic Directive has prohibited animal testing for cosmetic products since 2004, and cosmetic ingredients since 2009. Despite the perception of consumers, at least for brands sold in the EU, which in turn heavily influences what’s acceptable in North America and other parts of the world, animal testing has been more or less abolished. There are pockets where animal testing persists, for example in China, but today, I would warrant that all of our products in Canada are in fact not tested on animals. With that said, products and ingredients can still be tested on animal-derived products… There’s so much more to say on that point but I think Carol reviewed these points wonderfully in the podcast. Enjoy! To Learn more about XCellR8, visit https://x-cellr8.com