Slows you downUnited StatesBeauty & personal care

“Cruelty-free” has no legal definition in the US

FDA states that cosmetic companies can use “cruelty-free” and “not tested on animals” without restriction because there are no legal definitions for those terms, and that a company may make the claim about a finished product while relying on suppliers or contract laboratories for animal testing of ingredients.

The phrase is free to print and worth nothing to a US retail buyer who knows this, so it earns shelf space only when a brand can say what it actually did instead.

Limits how to read Cruelty-free is claimed 2.6x more by US-origin brands

Exceptions and limits

95 of a possible 97Tier A, primary document or measured outcome. Nothing at this tier is allowed past 97, however good it looks.

Verified August 5, 2026Rechecked every 365 days, next by August 5, 2027.

Taboo

Held since February 24, 2000What causes offence or backlash here. The earliest date we are willing to say this held. It may well have been true before that; we do not backdate a record past the evidence we have read. Supported, version 1.

This entry is wrong if

FDA publishes a definition of “cruelty-free” or “not tested on animals” for cosmetic labelling, or a federal rule restricts their use.

Written before the record was published, not after. If you can show this, send it to hello@tryorbt.com and the correction goes on the record with the entry.

Evidence

Tier Aregulation
U.S. Food and Drug Administration: “Cruelty Free”/“Not Tested on Animals”
The unrestricted use of these phrases by cosmetic companies is possible because there are no legal definitions for these terms.
Read 2026-08-05 · Public domain · page hash 0321d7829ccd

History

v1createdAugust 5, 2026
Initial entry from primary regulator text, read 2026-08-04.

Append-only. Nothing in this list is edited or removed once written, including the entries that record our own mistakes. Every change to every record is on the corrections page, and the same log is in entries.json under revisions.

labelling
marketing-claims
cruelty-free
animal-testing
taboo
beauty

Cite this entry

““Cruelty-free” has no legal definition in the US”, The Orbt Market Index 0.1.0, entry omr:us:cruelty-free-has-no-legal-definition, retrieved September 9, 2026, https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/us--cruelty-free-has-no-legal-definition. Dataset: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22679129

Orbt, "“Cruelty-free” has no legal definition in the US," Orbt Market Index, entry omr:us:cruelty-free-has-no-legal-definition, verified August 5, 2026, https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/us--cruelty-free-has-no-legal-definition.

@misc{orbt-us-cruelty-free-has-no-legal-definition,
  title        = {“Cruelty-free” has no legal definition in the US},
  author       = {{Orbt}},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.22679129},
  note         = {The Orbt Market Index 0.1.0 (dataset DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22679129), entry omr:us:cruelty-free-has-no-legal-definition. Verified 2026-08-05},
  howpublished = {\url{https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/us--cruelty-free-has-no-legal-definition}},
  license      = {Orbt Index Public Licence. Free to quote and cite; not to redistribute}
}

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