AVON

I remember as a little girl my mom bringing home a package every once in a while. This little package had lots of makeup goodies. Generally there would be a nail polish or two, a lipstick, an eye pencil, some talc powder, and my moms favorite perfum Haiku.

Avon was a great conveinence for my mother who had four kids basically back-to-back. It was a way for her to do her shopping without heading out with the four of us driving her insane. Now at 21, Avon is such a familiar brand to me. It’s a brand that I never once thought of questioning until recently: when I became employeed with Avon as a representative.

I qucikly went online and began reading the ingredients for all the cosmetic products: glycerin, lecithin, urea, zinc stearate, stearic acid and the list went on....

I thought, well there definitely is a plant/synthetic alternative for all of these ingredients, let me give them an email. And to my dissmay Avon generally uses animal derived ingredients because they are the most abundantly found. Moreover, Avon was the first lipstick I encountered that had the ingredient UREA! ARGH! I don’t want an animals pee near my lips!

But here I was, only a day into my new job, already regretting that I signed up for this thing. All my friends and family members were Muslim, so I had to let them know what products were permissible to use. There are a few products that were acceptable to use, but most of them were haram. I told each of my customers which ingredients were haram, and which were halal, and if they accidently chose a haram product I would notify them and remove it from their order. But I think most people became turned off by Avon.

I’m still employeed with Avon for my own personal discounts, but I would advise Muslim Consumers to absolutley avoid all the foundations, lip products, and mascaras. The rest of the makeup you can  either contact the company via phone/email, or look at their online shopping website for thier ingredient list.

Keep in mind that even if a product does not contain any haram ingredients, it is still processed in a factory that uses animal ingredients so cross-contamination can occur. If cross-contamination makes you an easy, it’s better you opt for a vegetable-based brand.