The amount of vegans in the UK has soared by 700 per cent in only two years, with 3.5 million people identifying as vegan. In addition, 42 per cent of the UK’s vegans made this change in 2018, prompting The Body Shop to investigate how the vegan beauty industry has changed.
Google searches for ‘vegan beauty’ have doubled every year since 2012, and continue to increase. As a result, 56 per cent of Brits have vegan buying behaviours, including checking their toiletries are cruelty-free and vegan, and only buying vegan products.
As a direct result of such behaviours, vegan beauty product sales increased by 38 per cent within the last 13 month, and over three million vegan products from The Body Shop were sold in the UK during 2018. This amount of products that were sold, it equates to one sold every second throughout 2018.
As UK consumers lead more ethically-sound lifestyles, the UK has seen a 175 per cent increase in the number of vegan cosmetic product launches between July 2013 and July 2018.
Vegan and cruelty-free cosmetics have drastically taken off due to the heightened awareness of animal testing and the changing views of consumers.
Animal testing includes injecting ingredients, skin tests and other toxicity tests, which are unnecessary and cause the death and suffering of hundreds of animals.
Not only has the awareness surrounding animal testing for cosmetics increased, the awareness of the vegan movement as a whole has brought to light the reality of animal agriculture, prompting people to lead a fully vegan lifestyle.
The beginning of 2019 has seen many new food product releases, with numerous chain restaurants such as McDonald’s, Greggs, Zizzi, and Pizza Hut launching new menus, to name but a few. As 2019 continues, more brands are expected to release vegan versions of the most popular products, indicating the increase of veganism.