Both labels appear on thousands of products. Neither has a legal definition in most markets, which means a brand can print either one on a box with nothing behind it. Here is what each actually means and how to verify it.
They are not the same thing
Cruelty-free is about testing. It means the finished product and, in a meaningful claim, its ingredients were not tested on animals — by the brand, by its suppliers, or by a third party on its behalf.
Vegan is about ingredients. It means no animal-derived ingredients are used.
A product can be one without the other:
- Cruelty-free but not vegan: contains beeswax, lanolin, carmine or honey, but nothing was tested on animals.
- Vegan but not cruelty-free: contains no animal ingredients, but the brand sells in a market that requires animal testing.
The gaps in a "cruelty-free" claim
Three questions decide whether a claim means anything:
- Does it cover ingredients, or only the finished product? A brand can honestly say it does not test the finished product while buying ingredients that suppliers tested. The stronger claim covers the whole supply chain.
- Does it cover third parties? "We do not test on animals" leaves room for "but our distributor does, where required".
- Where does it sell? Some markets require animal testing for certain imported cosmetics. A brand selling there is, in practice, funding animal testing regardless of what it does at home.
The certifications that actually mean something
Independent certification closes those gaps. Three are worth recognising:
- Leaping Bunny — the strictest of the three. Requires a supplier monitoring system and independent audits, and a fixed cut-off date after which no animal testing occurred anywhere in the supply chain.
- PETA Beauty Without Bunnies — widely used and easy to check. Based on a signed company statement rather than an audit, so it is slightly weaker than Leaping Bunny but far better than an unverified label.
- Choose Cruelty Free (CCF) — Australian, strict, less common internationally.
A rabbit logo that belongs to none of these is a brand's own artwork and guarantees nothing.
Checking a claim in two minutes
- Search the brand on the Leaping Bunny and PETA databases. Both are free and public.
- If it is not listed, look for a statement on the brand's own site that names ingredients and suppliers, not only the finished product.
- Check where the brand sells.
- Check who owns it. A cruelty-free brand can be owned by a parent company that tests — that does not invalidate the brand's own certification, but it is information you may want.
Ingredients that make a product non-vegan
The common ones, and what they are usually in:
Squalane is the one worth knowing about specifically: plant-derived squalane is now the industry norm and is chemically identical, but the INCI name is the same either way. If it matters to you, the brand has to tell you the source.
How we handle this on TrusteDiva
We only set the cruelty-free or vegan flag on a brand when the claim is traceable to a certifying body or an explicit, specific brand statement. Where a brand only uses the words in its marketing, we leave the flag unset — which shows as "not stated" rather than as a "no". A missing flag is missing evidence, not an accusation.
Frequently asked
Yes. Vegan describes the ingredients; cruelty-free describes the testing. A product with no animal-derived ingredients can still be sold in a market that requires animal testing, or made by a brand whose suppliers test.
Leaping Bunny. It requires supplier monitoring, independent audits and a fixed cut-off date covering the whole supply chain. PETA's programme is based on a signed company statement, which is weaker but still far more meaningful than an uncertified logo.
Usually, now. Squalane was historically derived from shark liver oil, but the industry has largely moved to olive- and sugarcane-derived squalane, which is chemically identical. The INCI name does not distinguish them, so you have to check the brand's source statement.
