Cruelty Free Nail Treatments?

I had an absolutely HORRIBLE thought earlier this week: what if my nail treatments are not cruelty free? AUGH! I would feel absolutely terrible about it. Seche, Nailtiques, Poshe...I could be completely undermining my own cause if I continued to buy cruelty free polish but then torture the bunnies for the treatments. Just bad! So I did some checking.

I learned a lot. American International Industries owns Seche and Poshe, as well as several other brands I was familiar with along with some I'd never heard of. China Glaze is a part of this, and so is Gena. Those are two I knew for sure. I found nothing on their website about their cruelty policies so I just flat asked. And in the meantime, mentioned I'm blogging and that if they do have animal testing in their manufacturing I will not slaughter them in the "press", but will simply not promote them, either. Fair enough, right?

I got an amazingly fast reply back, less than 24 hours. No animal testing, cruelty free in all their divisions, which is lovely.  They were also nice enough to let me know that they are currently working to get the cruelty status certification of all of their suppliers and will be working to be compliant with the 2013 cruelty free laws. YAY!!! Some of my favorite nail care products are all good.

Whew.

In the meantime I also checked on Diamond Cosmetics because I wasn't sure about them and they wrote back promptly to let me know that yes, they are all cruelty free there. They have some nice products so I'm glad to know that.

I think in my nail world, I only have a few grey sheep left in the herd: Chanel, which..honestly, if you've worn Chanel polishes? Yeah. Expensive. Expensive and not great wear. I shy away, though their colors often tend to reach legendary status. Gorgeous, but honestly, I can typically find 3 or 4 China Glazes for the cost of one bottle of Chanel and get twice the wear out of any one of them.

OPI. Essie...Gah. With these I struggle, Yoda. OPI, as if you're reading this blog I'm sure you must be aware, was sold several months ago to Coty. Coty is NOT cruelty free. OPI has always been and are claiming they always will be (Thanks to Sheilie for pointing out that OPI has achieved PETA's seal of approval.) BUT, this puts me in an ethical dilemma. OPI won't be testing on animals, but their new parent company does. Essie does not but they are owned by L'Oreal, which does. (Sorry all you Lancome groupies...switch over to Lauder or Clinique. For your skin's sake, I recommend Lauder even if your mother does wear it. Mine does and I love the stuff. Mom might have known what she was doing!)
Where to draw the line.... ??????
What's a bunny hugger to do? I absolutely detest the idea that even a penny of my money would go to animal testing companies.
So...well, what do you readers think? All 2 of ya? OPI is the 600 ton gorilla of the nail polish world. Do you ignore them? Put your foot down? Vote with your dollars and say ENOUGH?
I think I gotta. I confess, it's been a struggle, but...great as OPI may be, Coty is still indulging in the bad stuff. Can't support that. And I'm very curious on PETA's giving them the bunny. I may just question them on that soon.

Tough questions.