Brands Caught Straight Up LYING About Being Vegan

If you’ve ever wondered why lists like my painstakingly researched cruelty-free and vegan one exist, it’s for this reason: lots of companies claim to be vegan but either don’t know what “vegan” means or knowingly lie to consumers to make a quick buck.

All the brands on what I like to call the Vegan Rabbit Hall of Shame (this list) have explicitly claimed to be vegan / plant-based, or have been deliberately misleading and vague about their vegan status.

You might think I’m being too hard on these brands, but honestly, they are expected to know what the hell is in their products and what certain terms like “fair trade,” “organic,” and “vegan” mean.

These are all words with clear rules and definitions. For instance, there is not a single vegan certification program in existence that would certify a product containing bee-derived ingredients. It’s never happened and it never will because bees aren’t plants.

HALL OF SHAME

  • Common Good
  • Elevé Cosmetics
  • Fitglow
  • Hello Bello
  • Kino Hawaiian Skincare
  • Little Twig
  • Nature’s Brands
  • Ogee
  • One Two Cosmetics
  • SAINT Cosmetics
  • Skin Essence Organics
  • Skin2Spirit
  • TruSelf Organics
  • Tulip
  • The Unscented Company

Common Good

Common Good is so close to being a vegan brand it’s frustrating.

Most of their products are free of animal-derived ingredients, however they offer WOOL dryer balls:

Common Good is NOT a vegan brand and despite what they claim, they DO offer products that come from animals which means this brand profits from the exploitation of animals. AVOID.

Elevé Cosmetics

Elevé Cosmetics tries to be sneaky by saying their products are “vegan-based,” whatever that means. The wording they choose implies their products are vegan.

As you can see below, their Vitamin Sea sunscreen contains Cera Alba (aka BEESWAX), which they even acknowledge is not vegan at the bottom of the ingredients list.

Yet they still plaster the word “vegan” all over their site.

“Vegan-based” is not a thing. It’s a just made-up term by Elevé Cosmetics to trick consumers into thinking they are more compassionate than they truly are.

Fitglow

Fitglow claims to be plant-based, but their ingredients list says otherwise.

Beeswax 👏 is 👏 not 👏 vegan 👏 okay?

Hello Bello

I am SO disappointed to put Hello Bello on this list because they have so much potential. Unfortunately, this brand claims to be plant-based in its bold text but then with some investigating into the more fine print it’s clear that they are not a vegan brand.

Hello Bello claims to be Plant-Based but they’re not being truthful.

Here are two answers to questions on their FAQ page:

Hello Bello claims to be plant-based but has multiple products containing multiple animal-derived ingredients such as: gelatin, fish oil, and lanolin.

Last I checked, sheep, fish, and horses aren’t plants.

Screenshot of Hello Bello’s Prenatal + DHA vitamin gummies ingredients list showing fish oil and gelatin — NOT VEGAN!

Hello Bello made it onto my Hall of Shame Shit List because although they are honest about not being a totally vegan brand on their FAQ page, the rest of their site makes it seem like they are a plant-based, vegan brand. It would be very easy for someone to only read the bold text on their site and conclude that Hello Bello is a safe brand to buy from as a vegan — and they are NOT.

Kino Hawaiian Skincare

Kino makes no claims that they are a 100% vegan brand, however, they do claim that their CBD lip balm is vegan. Guess they weren’t planning on Vegan Rabbit coming along and reading all their ingredients just to make sure…

As evidenced by the screenshot above, Kino’s lip balm is so NOT vegan, the very first ingredient is BEESWAX.

Kind of makes you question the rest of their products and claims, doesn’t it?

Little Twig

I wonder what awesome plant-based laundry products Little Twig has — let’s find out…

Interesting…

If wool dryer balls are vegan, then I’m a virgin.

Nature’s Brands

Nature’s Brands is straight up lying about being vegan. They offer a TON of non-vegan products including gelatin capsules, fish oil, and way more. But they still put their own fake “vegan” logo on their main page:

I think they’re trying to say they offer vegan products in addition to other non-vegan products, but that’s not what this logo implies at all. It’s misleading to say the least.

Fish liver oil and grinded up hooves and bones all in one tiny pill and they somehow managed to make it vegan too? Wow!

Yeah, no.

Ogee

Ogee has their own made-up vegan logo on the front page of their site.

But they also use bee-derived ingredients.

Oh, gee…

If a brand wants to let potential customers know that they offer some vegan products, they should say they offer some vegan products, not just slap a fake “Vegan” logo on their main page which implies they are a totally vegan brand.

One Two Cosmetics

Here’s a cosmetics brand that doesn’t know what the word “vegan” means. Seriously. How does that still even exist in modern times??

That, or they’re just straight up lying about being vegan.

Either way, none of the claims they make are to be trusted. BEESWAX isn’t vegan. No vegan certification program has ever certified a product containing bee products as vegan.

Not one. Like, ever.

That’s probably why they had to make their own fake “vegan” certification logo implying some sort of legitimacy.

“We’re proud to be 100% vegan.” 🙄 Yeah, OKAY GUYS.

SAINT Cosmetics

SAINT claims to be “plant-based” which many people would believe means they base their formulations on plants as opposed to stuff from creatures in the animal kingdom.

But…

SAINT uses Cera Alba (aka BEESWAX). They are not vegan. They are not even plant-based.

Skin Essence Organics

I have an idea. If you’re not going to have a vegan product line, maybe don’t claim to be vegan.

lying about being vegan, fake vegan brand, fake vegan company, skin essence organics

Hopefully we all know that eating a bee isn’t vegan, so then why do so many of these brands think that eating/using something that comes from a bee is vegan? Beeswax isn’t vegan. Period.

Skin2Spirit

Okay seriously this is ridiculous. You can’t say you’re vegan and then plaster alpaca stuff all over your damn website. Are you stupid??

lying about being vegan, fake vegan brand, fake vegan company, skin2spirit
lying about being vegan, fake vegan brand, fake vegan company, skin2spirit

Skin2Spirit doesn’t appear to be deliberately lying, they just don’t know what the hell they’re saying or doing. If they say their products are vegan but they’re not, their products probably aren’t non-toxic, natural, organic, etc. either.

Words have meanings, especially to consumers. So, I dunno, maybe it’s just me but maybe companies shouldn’t use words they don’t know? Maybe?

TruSelf Organics

TruSelf Organics is hoping nobody visits their FAQ page to find out they aren’t actually as vegan as they keep telling everyone they are everywhere else on their site.

“…and by 100% vegan friendly, we actually mean less than 100% vegan friendly because we LITERALLY JUST SAID ‘with the exception of…’!”

But seriously, they clearly know that bee-derived ingredients are not vegan, so then why do this?:

Or this?

Can’t have it both ways.

Tulip

Somebody please explain to Tulip that beeswax isn’t vegan.

lying about being vegan, fake vegan brand, fake vegan company, tulip

Seriously, this isn’t particle physics. How hard is it for some brands to make honest, accurate claims?

The Unscented Company

The Unscented Company is under the impression that sheep are plants.

I’m not even kidding.

“Fully vegan” eh?

Ah yes, the elusive South-American Sheep-Plant, great for getting static and wrinkles out of clothes, apparently.

Know any more companies lying about being vegan?

If you catch a brand lying about being vegan or being unclear or misleading, please let me know in the comments section!