Kate Somerville is *Cruelty-Free

Kate Somerville has confirmed they do not test their products or ingredients on animals or ask others to test on their behalf. Their suppliers also do not test on animals, nor do they allow their products to be tested on animals when required by law. And finally, their products are not sold in stores in mainland China or any other country that may require animal testing.

By our standards, we would consider Kate Somerville to be *Cruelty-Free.

*Kate Somerville is owned by Unilever, a corporation that is NOT cruelty-free because they allow some of their other brands to test on animals.

It’s your choice whether you want to support or boycott cruelty-free brands owned by a parent company that is not cruelty-free. There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer to this. I encourage you to do what you’re comfortable with, but I think it’s important to disclose that Unilever owns Kate Somerville.

What About China’s Animal Testing Laws?

Kate Somerville has confirmed they only sell to authorized distributors in Hong Kong and to cross-border e-commerce sites like Tmall. They do not sell their products in retail stores in mainland China; therefore, they are not required to test on animals.

“Our products are sold in the US, Canada, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand. The only country in Asia that requires animal testing is China. Kate Somerville does not have a licensed distributor in China.“

As of May 1, 2021, some imported ordinary cosmetics can be exempt from animal testing under certain conditions. However, for the most part, animal testing is still legally required for most imported cosmetics in 2022.

Cruelty-Free Policies

Note that there is no legal definition for the label ‘Cruelty-Free.‘ It can mean different things to different people. But Cruelty-Free is generally used to imply no animal testing. More specifically, the ingredients, formulation, or finished product are not tested on animals at any stage of product development.

At ethical elephant, we always assess a company’s cruelty-free policy using our Cruelty-Free Checklist. This ensures no animal testing was performed by the brand itself, its suppliers, or any third parties.

Also, note that Cruelty-Free and Vegan don’t always mean the same thing.

Kate Somerville is Not Vegan

‘Vegan’ in cosmetics can refer to an entire brand that is 100% Vegan or a specific product is vegan.

In the case of Kate Somerville, they do not claim to offer any vegan products.

“At this time, we cannot make the claim that our products are vegan. The claim of “vegan” would require that we obtain written substantiation from the supplier of each and every ingredient used in all of our formula that states nothing in the ingredient itself is sourced or derived from animal, insect or marine life. We do not have that level of substantiation.

Our products do contain some plant based ingredients but are truly a blend of naturally and synthetically derived ingredients.“

For vegan alternatives to Kate Somerville, we recommend checking out these cruelty-free brands with vegan options: Dermalogica, StriVectin, Drunk Elephant, Ole Henriksen, Youth to the People, and Tatcha.

I hope this article helped you to understand Kate Somerville’s cruelty-free and vegan status and by choosing cruelty-free together, we can help end animal testing for cosmetics once and for all!