Updated on June 8, 2023

Is Carmine Vegan? | What Vegans Need to Know About Carmine

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What is carmine?

Many vegans and caring consumers choose to avoid cosmetics and food products containing an ingredient called carmine because it is derived from crushed bodies of insects. Yes, you read that right.

The red dye or food coloring is obtained from cochineal insects and it takes about 70,000 insects to produce a pound of dye. If you want to learn more about the harvesting and production process, I definitely recommend checking this post from Gentle World. Although carmine is considered safe to be used in food products and EWG does not consider the ingredient to be potentially toxic or harmful, there have been some reported cases of severe allergic reactions in consuming or using products that contain carmine.

As a result, the FDA requires food and cosmetic manufacturers to “specifically declare the presence of the color additive by its respective common or usual name, ‘cochineal extract’ or ‘carmine,’ in the ingredient statement of the food label.” (Source: LiveScience)

Lucky for us vegans, that means it’s pretty easy to spot the ingredient on labels and to avoid products containing crushed insects. However carmine goes by a number of different names (like cochineal extract, CI 75470, E120, Red 4) and I always seem to forget them all so I’ve created a handy graphic below that can be saved and used as a reference on the go!

What is Carmine?

Carmine in Food and Makeup

Carmine is widely used in food products and cosmetics as a ‘natural’ dye and can be found in just about anything. To give you a visual of how common the ingredient is in our consumer products, I’ve compiled some examples below:

Examples of products that may contain carmine

Is Carmine Vegan?

So, is carmine vegan? No. Anything that contains carmine or a derivative from cochineal insects is not suitable for vegans.

It’s also important to note that brands claiming their products are not tested on animals and are “cruelty-free” may use carmine in their products. Just because a brand claims to be “cruelty-free” does not automatically mean their products are free of carmine. The same goes for many self-proclaimed “natural” beauty brands. So we need to be on the lookout and make sure we’re reading those ingredient lists.

In addition, if you ever spot carmine in the ingredients under the “may contain +/-” list, this does not automatically mean the product contains carmine. Some cosmetic companies may use the same label or packaging on a number of their products and/or variation of colors in order to keep costs down. So some products or shades may contain carmine but other products that use the same label or packaging may not.

If you want to only shop and buy carmine-free cosmetics, then check out our list of 100% vegan beauty brands. None of these brands use carmine in their products.

Some products may not even contain carmine at all but since the products were made on the same equipment and assembly line with other products that do contain carmine, cosmetic manufacturers list carmine under the “may contain +/-” list for those who are sensitive or allergic to the ingredient.

When in doubt, always contact the company directly and ask if the product your interested in or the specific shade/color contains carmine.

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What do you think

19 thoughts on “Is Carmine Vegan? | What Vegans Need to Know About Carmine”

  1. No killing of carmine bugs just to obtain 1 pound of red dye to sacrifice 70,000 of bugs ??
    I will stop using all the red colors products such as the fabrics, food / beverages with red color dye ( cakes,yogurt, tomato sauce,etc), clothes and even papers. Instead using other kind of colors particularly primary colors ( yellow , blue , green). No secondary colors also such as purple , orange and brown. I will play my role mercifully as a human to save the bugs

  2. I most definitely check for Carmine especially in eye shadow products. It makes my eyes burn then swell and turn red bright red eyes. Then the skin peels.
    It’s horrifying tge reaction I get. Yes I’m an allergic one which means no ABH RENAISSANCE for me .

  3. I recently learned that Carmine is in my favorite candy —Good and Plenty —one of the oldest candy – coating of bugs in pink and white covered licorice .. sickening .

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