Published Paper Details:

In 2014, India banned the testing of cosmetic products on animals, becoming the first South-Asian country to do so. In 2016, the Indian Mica industry came into the limelight for employing children as young as 5 years old, in the mica mining industry. Several big cosmetic giants like Estee Lauder, Unilever, Procter, and Gamble were found sourcing mica from these mines. This gave rise to a new label called �Ethical Makeup�. However, there are no laws yet that require ethical sourcing of ingredients, making companies �cruel� towards their employees or the environment. Through this research, the level of awareness of Indian Consumers about �cruelty-free�, �ethical�, �vegan� cosmetics, and their likeliness to shift towards newer, �ethical� cosmetic brands was aimed to be established. After studying 309 respondents, it was found that 52.4% of the respondents had no clue that the brands they currently used tested on animals and/or were unethical. This proved that an average Indian Consumer has little to zero levels of awareness about the dark secrets of the cosmetic industry. However, not everything is disheartening as 67% of the respondents strongly believed they would shift towards ethical cosmetics while 12.6% were neutral about it.