This list will continue to be updated as I go along. I’ve copied and linked to my email correspondence with the companies when applicable (email addresses have been included for those who may wish to contact the companies themselves/have them for reference, but have been modified to prevent spamming).
American International Industries (China Glaze, Poshe, Seche) – Have signed no-animal-testing statements. Nail colours and topcoats are vegan, not all China Glaze treatments are vegan. Ingredients are on packaging. See correspondence.
Beauty 21 Cosmetics (LA Colors, LA Girl, Love & Beauty) – Have signed no-animal-testing statements. Nail polish colours are vegan, some LA Girl treatments contain silk (ingredients are listed on packaging). See correspondence.
Beauty Without Cruelty – one of the traditionally well-known brands that make all-vegan polish and makeup available at some vegan online stores.
Butter London – No animal testing, no animal ingredients in nail polishes/treatments. (Irritating customer service at butterlondon Canada though.) See correspondence.
Catrice – polishes are vegan. (detailed info to come soon)
Color Club (Forsythe Cosmetics – also make Cosmetic Arts) – Leaping Bunny certified and all nail colours are vegan. See http://www.cosmeticgroup.com/store/behind-brand.html
Cult Nails – No animal testing or animal ingredients, as detailed in their about page.
Deborah Lippman – No animal testing, nail products are vegan except for cuticle remover. See correspondence.
Essence – polishes are vegan. (detailed info to come soon)
Gabriel Cosmetics – one of the traditionally-known brands that make vegan polishes and makeup available at some vegan online stores.
GOSH – polishes are vegan. (detailed info to come soon)
Illamasqua – No animal testing as detailed on their website. Nail colours are vegan, see correspondence.
Joe Fresh – no animal testing, ingredients on labels. Older labels had no animal ingredients listed. Need to check with company about newer labels which list some potentially animal-derived ingredients (even for shades which had no animal ingredients listed on older version of label); will update when I find out.
Kleancolor – No animal testing as detailed in their FAQ. All nail colours are vegan. See correspondence.
Milani – No animal testing; nail colours are vegan with the exception of the One Coat Glitters and Jewel FX, which contain guanine of unknown source. See correspondence.
Misa – Have signed no-animal-testing statements. Products are vegan, see correspondence.
No Miss – one of the traditionally well-known brands that make all-vegan polish and treatments available at some vegan online stores.
Nubar – Have signed no-animal-testing statements. Products are vegan and promoted as such on their website. See ingredients list for nail polishes here.
NYX – Have signed no-animal-testing statements. All nail polishes are vegan, as are many of their other cosmetics. See correspondence.
Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics – Have signed no-animal-testing statements. All products vegan; see their FAQ.
OPI/Nicole by OPI – Have signed no-animal-testing statements. The company was acquired by Coty last year, who are said to be involved in animal testing (not sure for which of the many brands they own), however OPI has retained and re-committed to its no-animal-testing policies after being bought. Nail colours produced since 2007 are free of animal ingredients, OPI Ridge Filler is not vegan however (contains silk). There are a few older discontinued colours that contain guanine, see correspondence for the list.
Orly – Have signed no-animal-testing statements. Ingredients on packaging; most nail colour ingredients lists I’ve seen so far have been vegan – but there are some older Orly shades that are not, such as Emerald Life and other similar sheers – these ones say “Made with natural pearl” on the back of the bottle and have guanine in the ingredients list. I haven’t yet received a response from Orly about a comprehensive list of which polishes are and are not vegan, but all the newer ones seem to be. Not all of their treatments are vegan; be sure to check ingredients.
Ozotic (Lumineye – also make the brands Artform and Chemistry) – No animal testing or animal ingredients. See correspondence.
Picture Polish – polishes are vegan. (detailed info to come soon)
Sally Beauty Supply (FingerPaints, Sally Girl, Beauty Secrets)- No animal testing or animal ingredients in the production of their polishes. See correspondence (copied from Sally customer service portal). Similarly, no animal testing involved in Beauty Secrets treatments, check ingredients though as not all are vegan.
Soulstice Spa – Have signed no-animal-testing statements. All nail colours are vegan. May contain synthetic guanine. See correspondence.
SpaRitual – Have signed no-animal-testing statements. All ingredients are vegan; see their site.
Wet n Wild – Have signed no-animal-testing statements. Nail colours are vegan and ingredients on packaging. See a list of their vegan products here.
Zoya – No animal testing; all nail polishes and Zoya Color Lock treatments are vegan. See correspondence.
Comments on: "Vegan Nail Polish Resource" (27)
Thanks for the info! I always do a cruelty-free check before I look into a cosmetic to purchase. Any info on Nutra Nail, Develop 10, Pro FX, & Beauty Secrets would be most appreciated as well.
You should be able to add Cult Nails to this list, as well as Beauty Without Cruelty, No Miss, and Dr.’s Remedy. Thank you for posting this resource! I had no idea some of these were vegan
There is a company I would like to ask about whether their polish is vegan but I do not have a good list of non-vegan polish ingredients to specifically include. Is there such a list somewhere that I could use when I contact them?
Hi Meredith!
You know, it didn’t occur to me to add companies like No Miss since I figured it goes without saying, but I should add them to the list!
Here is what I usually ask companies, feel free to use it:
“I was wondering if you could tell me whether there is any animal testing in the production of your nail polishes, either by conducting or commissioning animal testing, or buying ingredients from companies that do such things?
Also, wondering if there are any animal ingredients in any of the nail polishes/treatments (such as guanine (CI 75150, 75170), pearl, silk, keratin, carmine (CI 75470), etc)? If so, would you be able to tell me which products? Do you have ingredients lists available?”
Oh, and keep in mind that some of these ingredients can be synthetically-derived as well – guanine & carmine for sure (same with beeswax in other cosmetics, as I learned when I contacted NYX – wish they would just include “synthetic” on the label!), and sometimes companies use the word “pearl” to refer to mica-based pigments. I usually ask the above questions, and if they reply yes for those ingredients, I follow up and ask if they’re natural or synthetic.
@Debbie, I need to update my Sally Beauty listing to add Beauty Secrets, I recently contacted them to make sure and there is no animal testing for the Beauty Secrets line either. Ingredients are on the package of each product, I haven’t checked every product in store yet but from ingredients lists online it looks like their nail polish thinner, basecoat and topcoat are vegan friendly, and of course the pure acetone since it’s just acetone – looks like their acetone-based remover is NOT vegan though.
I emailed Knocked Up Nails and this was their (timely and helpful) response:
“Hi Meredith,
Absolutely! It is not tested on animals, nor are there any animal ingredients. It is all laboratory made. Or ingredient list is below:
Cheers,
Ashley
Ingredients: Butyl Acetate, Ethyl Acetate Nitrocellulose, Acetyl Tributyl Citrate, Adipic Acid/ Neopentyl Glycol/ Trimellitic Anhydride Copolymer, Isopropyl Alcohol, Stearalkonium Bentonite, Acrylates Copolymer, Styrene/Acrylates, Copolymer,Benzophenone-1, CI 77891,CI 19140, CI 15850, CI 15850,CI 15880, CI 77491,CI 77499, CI 77510, CI 77163 Polyethylene Terephthalate, Aluminium Powder, Mica,
Knocked Up Nails
781-281-1665
http://www.knockedupnails.com”
I thought it might interest you.
Thanks for sharing your investigations!
It gives me a good list to start with. I do however wish that companies that are involved with animal cruelty (like selling animal hair make up brushes and such) doesn’t deserve to be on a list on a site called “veganclaws”, but I appreciate the fact that you include information about other products from the brand not beeing vegan and if the company is owned by another company that conducts animal testing.
It’s such a djungle out there, with evesive answers and loopholes. I just wish there were more sites that listed companies that are completely cruelty free.
I appreciate this list so much! I have one question that I hope you have an answer or at least your own take on. If a company, OPI is the perfect example, does not test on animals, yet are owned and a portion of their profits go to their parent company that does test/is non-vegan… shouldn’t they be excluded from the list? I do not want to indirectly support animal testing; but I’m just wondering if my tinking/understanding is correct.
Thanks!
Awesome blog topic, thank you so much!!! What about Urban Decay and Manic Panic? I’ve bought them in the past because I thought I read somewhere they were vegan.
[...] Vegan Nail Polish Blog- Vegan Claws [...]
[...] Twitter friend recently pointed me in the direction of Vegan Claws’ Nail Polish Resource – and boy, was I ever in heaven. OPI, China Glaze…?! Brands I’d heard about on [...]
I have been looking for a site to tell me which nail polishes where animal friendly.Thank you for this site.
Do you still think it’s ok to buy from OPI? So far I haven’t bought any of their nail polishes because of their parent company, but I’m not sure if that’s truly considered cruelty-free or not?
I love your blog and you have such great nails! I recently emailed Classics Glamour and they replied with this: “I would like to inform you that all Classics cosmetics are not tested on animals and do not contain animal ingredients.
thank you”
So their Classics Glamour Nail Lacquer is cruelty-free and vegan
Thanks, Nuria! Glad you like the blog! And thanks for that info – I had never heard of that brand. Good to know!
Brilliant! One of the easiest to use, most informative blogs on vegan nail varnishes I’ve come across. Thank you
[...] out there for information on which nail polishes are tested on animals. My favorite blog is Vegan Claws. The posts are backed with facts from the websites from the [...]
Thank you for this! I am trying to decide if I still want to buy OPI products. Also, ELF (eyes, lips, face) is non-animal tested. Love their polish.
Hi – Thank you very much for posting this – any idea which of these brands have chosen to sell in China (knowing that their product will then be tested on animals)?
Hi Christy,
I haven’t knowingly included any, and I think all those who have signed statements with programs like Leaping Bunny definitely don’t, but now that you mention it I’m not positive for all of the others…
Thank you very much for this article!
hi vegan claw ,i wanted to know about “nyc” nail polish,i read somewhere that it doesn’t test on animals,but you don’t mention anything about that brand,would you happen to know anything about nyc nail polish? thank you
Anyone know about Konad polishes? Cant find anything on them!
e.l.f doesn’t test on animals, its 1 dollar for each bottle and e.l.f comes in 29 colors
The New Black is cruelty free & vegan too!
[...] A good friend of mine asked me earlier this week if nail polish was vegan. I assume things are not vegan until proven otherwise so I went directly to the Internet. I was right in this case. Fish (scales for sparkles) and pearl is often in nail polish, but no worries, there are brands out there for those of us that need cruelty-free products. Vegan Claws is officially my go-to resource for vegan nails. Check it out. http://veganclaws.com/vegan-nail-polish-resource/ [...]
It gives me such relieft to know that there are still quite a few products and copanies that don’t test on animals!! Hopefully one day soon all companies will follow!!
what about kozmic colours