Mink Fur on the UK High Street
Moving Animals’ report revealed how popular UK high-street brands are still selling everything from false eyelashes to luxury blankets made from mink fur.
In collaboration with the Fur Free Britain Campaign
1 Exclusive Article
with The Mirror
1 Feature Piece
with Glamour Magazine
£7 million
worth of fur imports
The Issue
When the news broke that a coronavirus mutation had jumped from minks to humans, scientists feared that this could hamper the effectiveness of a future vaccine, and panic ensued. The mass culling of the country’s 15 million mink was ordered, and the fur farming industry was thrown into the spotlight once again for the world to scrutinise.
The images of the cull revealed piles of bodies being offloaded from trucks into mass graves, and dead minks being wheeled towards incinerators. The cruel reality of fur farming also received global attention; more than 100 million animals suffer and die at the hands of the fur trade each year, and the majority of fur is produced by intensively farming animals in cramped battery-cages. They are usually killed by gassing or electrocution.
Impact For Change:
Fur Free Britain Campaign
After news of the mink cull hit, and with people in the UK asking the question “who still wears mink fur?”, we decided to look into the retailers still profiting from this horrific trade. Our report was used by The Mirror as part of their Fur Free Britain campaign. The campaign is calling for the UK to become the first country to ban imports.
The UK banned fur farming in 2000, but there’s a loophole: the sale of fur is still legal. In 2020 alone, the UK has imported approximately £7 million worth of fur. Our report revealed that it’s not just small, independent fur shops in the UK that sell mink fur, but also a host of leading brands and household names that have mink fur products still for sale too. The world-famous Harrods, for example, has everything from a Fendi Kids Fun Fur Mink Blanket (retailing at £4,590) to Isaak Azanei Fur-Trim Sweatpants (£450).
Perhaps one of the most overlooked fur products is mink-fur false eyelashes. A far cry from the stale and outdated mink fur coats owned by previous generations, mink eyelashes are fully on-trend and favoured by a whole host of popular celebrities and social media “influencers”.
Despite so many synthetic, animal-free alternatives available, some leading beauty brands are still choosing to use mink fur for their false eyelashes. Lilly Lashes, endorsed by the likes of Kylie Jenner and James Charles, still sells the cruel product and has been condemned for “misleading” consumers by mislabelling their mink fur products as 'cruelty-free’.
The tide is turning though. Thanks to increased public awareness and consumer demand for animal-free beauty products, more and more brands are phasing out real mink fur lashes. Falseeyelashes.co.uk made the decision earlier in the year not to order any more mink lashes. “The lash industry has seen a lot of innovation recently and there's a bright future for all things false lashes - mink lashes are not a part of that bright future”, the brand told us.
Glamour Magazine
Leading beauty publication Glamour magazine also covered the Moving Animals report and concluded to its thousands of makeup fans: “Our verdict? Steer clear and opt for truly cruelty-free lashes by having synthetic ones applied, instead.”
Visuals
Header image credit: Andrew Skowron. For fur industry images, we recommend the archives of Andrew Skowron and We Animals Media.