Sephora Stops Selling Fur Eyelashes

Cosmetics giant Sephora has confirmed that it had banned fur eyelashes, including those made from mink's fur. Sephora will purchase and sell only synthetic or faux-fur lashes from now on.

This decision marks a victory for animal advocates following PETA's campaign where more than 280,000 customers e-mailed Sephora asking the company to stop selling mink fur lashes. 

Mink fur typically comes from fur farms, where animals are kept in horrible conditions. PETA's investigations have revealed that on these farms, stressed minks live inside small wire cages where they move endlessly in circles, surrounded with maggots and faeces. Animals kept in such conditions suffer many infections and body malformations. Some of them even self-mutilate chewing into their own tails.

"PETA's undercover investigations have revealed that on these hellish, filthy farms, stressed minks frantically pace and circle endlessly inside small wire cages—during one eyewitness exposé, a mink even chewed through a cage until her face was bloody," PETA wrote. 

"In the fur industry, minks sometimes languish with infections and broken or malformed legs. Some even self-mutilate as a result of the intensive confinement, chewing into their own legs or tails," the charity continued. "At the end of their miserable lives, they're gassed or anally electrocuted or their necks are broken (the cheapest killing methods available)."

"Today's kind shoppers don't want mink eyelashes any more than they want a mink coat," PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman told Green Matter. "Scores of beauty brands have joined PETA in rejecting caging and killing animals for their fur, so Sephora's move is right on trend."

Sephora is joining brands such as Tarte, Too Faced and Urban Decay which offer cruelty-free products to their customers. From now on, the brand will only offer animal-free lashes in all of its 2,600 stores across 34 countries.

Commenting on the decision Sephora spokesperson said: "At Sephora, we have always been committed to upholding the highest standards of beauty, and we take our responsibility to communicate transparently and honestly with our clients about the products we carry seriously," a Sephora spokesperson tells Green Matters in a statement. "As we shared with PETA, earlier this year, we had already decided to begin phasing mink products out of our assortment in 2020. We have only ever offered products our clients can trust, and we stand by the people and partners who have made the Sephora experience what it is today."