Complete Guide to Cruelty-Free and Vegan Korean Cosmetics

Korean skincare products as we may know; have a wide variety of natural and organic products. But is there any Korean vegan brand that exists in the market?

Before anything else, let us first define what vegan is.

Vegan is a lifestyle for people who oppose utilizing or consumption of any animal products; whether it may be food or clothing.

These days, vegans refuse to eat or use any animal products such as meat, fish, and also products that are produced by animals such as eggs, milk, honey, cheese, dairy, snail extracts, bee extracts, and so on.

But the question now is, how do I know if a brand is vegan certified?

A certified vegan brand does not use any animal ingredient or any of its by-product derivatives. For a product to be vegan certified, it has to go through certification. There is a worldwide international certification that qualifies a product to be vegan certified. Usually, each certification needs to be renewed every year. Having a certification can cost a lot and also requires employees to have frequent checks on products. There are 3 worldwide trustworthy certifications namely:

The Vegan Society - (UK)
Founded in 1990 in the United Kingdom, recognized internationally.
Certified Vegan – (US)
The Certified Vegan logo is recognized worldwide and is arranged on products that are owned by company brands located in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and US Territories.
Certified AVA (American Vegan Association)
Recognized mainly in the United States and also in India.

Now, does cruelty-free means a product is vegan?

A cruelty-free product means no type of animal testing or exploitation has been conducted during the stage of product production. So, remember it doesn’t necessarily mean that a cruelty-free product can be vegan. Aside from vegan products having a certification, the cruelty-free product does also need to obtain a certification process. The most popular cruelty program organization is the Leaping Bunny. Leaping Bunny works with companies for them to able to produce trust and easier recognition of cruelty-free products. But some of the companies may not bother to register their brands even though their products are cruelty-free as it can be too costly.

In 2013, Europe, India, Israel, Turkey, and New Zealand, has banned all animal testing for cosmetics. However, mainland China requires animal testing for imported cosmetics regardless of which country they are produced. But there has been a development concerning this law. They now allow the selling of cruelty-free brands provided that the products directly mailed to the consumers will be of personal consumption. As for Korea, there is no certification for vegan or cruelty-free brands yet. Korean vegan skincare brands don’t go through the difficulty of getting a certificate, specifically now that the animal testing on cosmetics has been prohibited. As of 2018, Korea has ceased animal testing due to the implementation of the 5 Year Plan for Animal Welfare.

These are the logos of the cruelty-free certification programs that are with the same concept as Leaping Bunny. These organizations are not regulated by the government. They have listed the cruelty-free brands on their websites for the public’s reference.

ChooseCrueltyFree
Cruelty-free is US-based that uses PETA's logo.
Leaping Bunny

Vegan in Korean Skincare Industry

The use of animal derivative ingredients are widely known in Korean skincare products. This popular trend in the Korean skincare industry is incorporating products of snail excretion, beeswax, honey, bee venom, pig collagen, horse oil; etc. Although Veganism is still an unlikely sensation in Korea, their step towards cruelty-free is an opportunity for the vegan consumers out there. There are still brands that are vegan and cruelty-free. However, some brands do not have their certification organization rather they use the international programs.

Adapting to vegan skincare doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to adjust to the vegan lifestyle. There are good reasons why vegan skincare might be worth the try for your skin. Vegan products in general commonly use products that are refined and natural compared to the products that use synthetic ingredients, thus vegan products increase their benefits to your skin. If you have sensitive skin, chances are your skin might be irritated by synthetic ingredients such as paraben or alcohol even if they claim to be hypoallergenic. To those who are vegan, you have to be mindful of whether a product has an animal or plant-based derived ingredients. Another tip is, be meticulously looking for the hidden animal-derived ingredients of the products such as; Lanolin, Bee products, Squalene, Collagen, Hyaluronic Acid. Sometimes product labels can be misleading if ingredients are not checked properly by the consumer before purchase.

Now that we have a piece of proper knowledge and understanding about the Korean vegan skincare, we have listed some of the products in Q-depot that can check out:

Klairs

All products of Klairs are vegan and cruel-free except for the Midnight Blue Calming Cream and Manuka Honey & Choco Body Soap. Klairs is recorded in Norway’s Dyrevernalliansen cruelty-free list.

RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS

1- Dear Klairs Freshly Juiced Vitamin Drop

2- Dear Klairs Rich Moist Soothing Cream

3- Dear Klairs Gentle Black Deep Cleansing Oil

COSRX

COSRX is cruelty-free and does not export products to China, although some products may not be Vegan, nonetheless, all of their product is toxic-free.

RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS

1- Aloe Soothing Sun Cream SPF50PA+++

2- Low pH Good Morning Gel Cleanser

3- Ultimate Nourishing Rice Overnight Spa Mask

Q-depot offers most of these products at wholesale as well. Along with these, we supply 200+ other famous Korean cosmetics brands at the best wholesale prices. For more details, please visit here.