Be Excellent To Each Other

Strawberry Buttock Rub.

To be fair, they do make an effort to use non-animal tested stuff, and they identify stuff that doesn't use animal ingredients too (most of it, I think). So that's good if you like that kind of thing.
The perfume can be a bit much though.

The problem is that all ingredients have been tested on animals at some point. This is what always used to wind me up about The Body Shop - yeah, your products aren't tested on animals, but EVERYTHING THAT GOES IN IT was.

Yes, of course - and if you look at even the most bog-standard, everyday products now when you wandered through Boots, almost all will have displayed that they are not tested on animals, and as Mr Chris says, almost all ingredients have already been tested on animals - such as the chemicals listed in that random shampoo I linked to - chemicals in use since 1920, will have at one point been dropped into Flopsie's eyes.

Saying that you are animal friendly doesn't mark you out as unique, anymore - it is becoming industry standard. Some companies just like to use it as a mantra more than others.

About 3 or 4 years ago now.

I used to work in IT at a company that did animal testing on site (in an exciting underground facility). It was one of the few places in the UK to be allowed armed guards.

Really? I guess you were far away from the actual testing of the animals, but I think I would have found it quite distressing.

It would appear that I can be arsed. Footlong BMT, double meat extra cheese.

I didn't know whether to eat it or fornicate with it.

Couldn't give less of a fuck. I'd much rather they tested stuff on animals than, say, my mum.
I only went down there twice, and most of the animals seemed quite contented. I was looking forward to seeing a monkey with lipstick on, but alas there were no monkeys at all.

I accidentally got some of her body scrub into my mouth once and it was quite tasty. I think that most, if not all, of her stuff is technically edible - though not actually designed for eating

The funniest thinking that I have ever done was when having mendhi patterns applied for Indian weddings when I was younger - they always coated you with a mixture of sugar and lemon afterwards to help it stick whilst the die penetrated your skin. I could never help but lick the lemon and honey mixture off

True. It's just always been massively hypocritical from the Body Shop, as they criticise, say, L'Oréal on the one hand for using products tested on animals (and L'Oréal haven't tested finished products on animals since some time in the 80s. But of course all their ingredients still will have been) and then do exactly the same thing themselves (i.e. use ingredients tested on animals).

And then Roddick sold out to L'Oréal as well, to make matters worse.

Small disclosure - I used to work as an inhouse lawyer at L'Oréal. Fun times.

Really? But your mum would at least have a choice in the matter and presumedly not do it for free...

True, but the choice is between stuff that isn't tested on animals any more (either the product or the ingredients), and stuff that routinely still is. Which is a worthwhile distinction IMHO.

There's often a statement about non-testing after some cutoff date. Clearly, that's going to mean that you won't get exciting new designer additives with names like polyo-nu-beutafimeme in your shampoo every month, but personally I'm quite happy with that.

If it's becoming a standard thing, good, I didn't know that

Very little is routinely tested on animals anymore - if you just take five minutes to read the back of the products that you are purchasing in any chemists you will see that most products are no longer tested on animals. I just had a look at my bathroom stuff and nothing there was tested on animals, and I didn't specifically shop to make this disctinction.

Was it worth it?

And you get the Obvo-Joke Award of the Day!

I got heartily sick of that, I have to say. If I'd needed a reason to leave, that would have done it. The free products made me popular with the missus though. Armani perfume FTW.

It's amazing how many brands L'Oréal actually own - it seems like most of the market (and, in some areas, actually is). Free markets, eh?

There stuff is good quality (if that makes it smelleir so be it..at least I can smell it and continue to smell it after use!), nothing is tested on animals, most of the stuff in it is far superior quality to crap in other shops, most of the packaging is eco friendly and they recycle as much as poss. You pay more for better quality.
They are expanding much more now too, so more people ike it than dislike it in the grander scheme of things.

If you don't like the smell, fair enough, you don't have to go in lol
Lush ftw! I hope it continues to grow tbh, then they can do more eco friendly things.

Whilst I'm not heavily into buying cosmetics, I suppose I would in theory prefer for them not to have been rubbed into the eyes of a fluffy bunny first. After all, that's what we have students for, isn't it?

Medicines though, I prefer to know that it works on rats too.

Smelly FTFY

I have asthma and I'd rather walk through the perfume section of Debenhams than spend a single second in Lush. Fucking awful place.

*takes a bow, fails to dodge the incoming hail of L'Oréal products thrown at him, and is set promptly set alight by a stagehand*

I was at Oxford Uni when all the stuff broke about that cattery nearby where they did all the drugs experments that had links to the Uni. It caused quite the stink. I once had to cross a bunch of protesters to get to lectures; they didn't listen to me when I explained they seemed to be petitioning the physics building, and that biosci was over a mile away. Our quarks and bosons cared not for kittens.

Holy shit. I've had a 6" double-meat BMT and that's bad enough. Can't imagine how heavy a footlong would sit in my stomach. If you ever want to thoroughly fuck off the staff, order a footlong meatball double meat to go; there's simply no way to serve it.

The company I mentioned above was Unilever. Between them, L'Oréal and GlaxoSmithKlein(e?), I think that's pretty much every branded product in the UK.

Perhaps they thought you had boxes of cats in there?



Indeed. I think Beiersdorf is the only other major one in the cosmetics field.

The superglue on my desk isn't made by any of them. Nor is my mouse.

Who is the glue made by?

Oh wait! Henkel do glue, and Persil washing powder.
Proctor and Gamble are big players, too.

yes, but it is only better quality in your opinion, I am not 'freakish' for thinking that this is not the case, as I absolutely hate the stuff - I think it is poor quality and overpriced to boot, which is fair enough reckoning in my mind.

But this is not the case - you don't have to be in the shop to smell it, merely being in the same district will do.

Well, I suppose we could have done, it's difficult to be sure about that. Incidentally the illustrations on the Wikipedia article on Schrodinger's Cat are excellent.

God yes - I'm amazed I could forget them. They're a very big player in the cosmetics market. I presume they make other stuff.



Genius:

And this one:

When I did some work for P&G (who own Pampers) I went to a meeting they were having and heard this rather scary statistic: Every week in 2006 there were 150 babies born that P&G either didn't know about, or didn't get a 'new mother' welcome pack out to.
That's, like, 0.1%.

There's 150,000 babies a week?

Fuck.

That would be 7.5 million a year, ish. That sounds a little bit off.

Please let that not just be in the UK. That must be for the whole of Europe, surely?

Did the Grimlet... get his?

My twin brothers were only awarded the one to share, which I thought was a bit tight.

It's Bounty that send out the pack of sample products from various manufacturers. We've had a few from them now. Whilst there are a few good bits and bobs, it's mostly lots of leaflets trying to get more personal informaiton off you (as if they don't already have loads to start with).

Corporatism FTFY

Still interested?

PM me, wont be cheap though.

Yup, and guess who the main 'sponsor' for that is.
Ever wonder why you never got any Huggies nappies in there?

Oh, I know. I've seen the contracts between Bounty and the various manufacturers...

After the experiments strapping butter toast to the cats' backs to try and build a perpetual motion machine failed, RG's department were left to dispose of them by dropping them into the particle accelerator and listening to the agonised yowls as the cats spun around the race track at almost the speed of light.

IT WOULD NEVER HOVER. IT WOULD NEVER HOVER. Any such strap is an impossible device. It would break: cat and toast would part and fall as normal. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WOULD IT EVER HOVER.

It was a long time ago, MrD - you have to put it behind you.

could you not just butter the cats back?

What about if the cat was oriented longitudinally, on a buttered treadmill?

Last Tango in Paris?

Only if the cat were called Toast. A fine name for a cat.

Toast is also a fine lunch. Especially with either jam (not cat jam), or ham (not cat ham).

Or green cat spam from a cat spam can.

And we're back to Subway.

We're in agreement that the plane wouldn't take off though, right?