Vegan Face Paints: All You Need To Know About Them

Vegan face paints are a great option for those customers or users that are concerned about animal welfare. If you are looking to buy vegan face painting supplies to use on your next event, to play with your kids, to create your next cosplay costume, or for your next viral YouTube video, you should read the post below to find out which brands are vegan and which ones aren't.

The great thing is that most professional face paints brands are vegan, and none of them are tested on animals.

Vegan Face Paint Brands

Jest Paint is a great source for vegan face paints. You can feel confident buying from our vegan face paints selection knowing that you will only be using cruelty-free products at your next event or while playing with your own kids or students.

The only professional face paint brands that are not vegan that we know of are Mehron StarBlend face paints, FAB, Superstar, Grimas, ProAiir Inks, Endura, Mikim FX, Kryolan, Graftobian, Elisa Griffith, Snazaroo, EBA Endura and Voda, and some Ben Nye products and that is because they use lanolin, carmine, beeswax or shellac. Although animals are not directly killed to obtain shellac, beeswax or lanolin ingredients, vegans oppose the use of any animal byproduct and hence we can't call these brands vegan.

Brands like Fusion Body Art, Global Body Art, Diamond FX, TAG Body Art, Cameleon, Wolfe FX , Paradise, and Kryvaline are all vegan since they contain no animal byproducts of any kind. Ruby Red is also vegan with the exception of their UV colors that use shellac as part of their formula and their Natural Formula that uses beeswax. Graftobian face paints are vegan except for those colors that contain red pigment since some of those might have carmine in them according to the label. That same criteria applies to Kryolan products since their label says they might contain carmine.  ProAiir Hybrids, and ProAiir DIPS  are vegan as well.

Non Vegan Ingredients: What to Look For?

Most animals by-products used in cosmetics are lanolin, carmine pigment, shellac, and beeswax. All four of those ingredients should be listed on the ingredients list if they are part of the product's formula, so it should be fairly easy for you to determine if your product is vegan or not.

PETA Certification for Face Paints

Some companies go an extra mile and get their products listed on PETA's website, although you have to understand that PETA does not do any kind of onsite verification or testing to prove a product is indeed vegan. They just ask the manufacturer or distributor to complete and sign a form indicating that their product is indeed vegan. So, you are relying on the manufacturer's claims, since there is no extra level of verification on PETA's part.

Natural vs Vegan Face Paints?

Are natural and vegan face paints the same thing? No, they are not. Natural face paints are usually those made with no artificial dies. They tend to look dull and be very oily as they rely on naturally occurring ingredients that have not been refined to be used with this purpose. A lot of natural face paints are actually not vegan because they use beeswax as a base ingredient. Some brands can be both vegan and natural, but the results we have seen from natural face paint brands are not the ones that professional face painters are usually looking for. These brands are also very hard to use with a  face painting brush for details, and they tend to be oil or grease-based, rather than water-activated, so they are harder to work with. If you are working with a very specific group of customers that only use natural products, or you are a parent/painter interested in this kind of product, a simple Google search will bring up several brands. Make sure to check their reputation before buying so that you get a product that really meets your needs.

Final Notes on Vegan Face Paints

Although not everyone feels the need to only work with vegan products, we think it is great that most brands are indeed vegan, and we love to be able to give our Jest Paint customers the chance to choose vegan face paints for their kit.

You will find that some events, in particular, might require you to only use vegan products, so it is important for you to always have some vegan face paints on your kit. This is particularly true when working with animal shelters, pro-animal organizations and environmental groups.

If you have any other questions about vegan face paints please leave us a comment below, we would love to hear what you have to say and answer any questions you might have.