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On Saturday, July 28, six members of ARC’s Outreach Team stood outside of the M.A.C store on Hennepin Avenue in Uptown Minneapolis and passed out cruelty-free cosmetic samples to passersby. Along with the cruelty-free samples, they also passed out “Dirty Dozen” cards, which listed the top twelve companies guilty of testing their products on animals. M.A.C, along with its parent company, Estee Lauder, shocked its customers by recently changing from not testing on animals, to testing on animals. This sad fact makes no sense, given the irrelevance of testing cosmetics on species who would never wear cosmetics and the many cruelty-free alternatives to testing on animals.

To protest the company’s change in ethics, team members explained to passersby why they were standing in front of the store, what they were handing out, and what people could do to help. They asked passersby to boycott companies such as M.A.C. and suggested where to go to buy cruelty-free products. After all 275 Dirty Dozen cards and samples were passed out within 20 minutes, the team passed out stickers about animal testing and leaflets about animals abused in entertainment and Premarin. The traffic in the area was heavy and the team passed out more than 500 pieces of literature overall, and had many conversations with women who were shocked and angry about M.A.C.’s decision and promised not to go back to M.A.C. as long as they were testing on animals. This outreach event was a huge success and we plan to do another soon!