Dave Navarro is putting a face – and a body – to the hundreds of thousands of animals worldwide who are poisoned, blinded and killed every year in tests for the cosmetics industry.
In the edgy new PETA UK campaign, which was shot by top celebrity photographer Joseph Cultice, a nude Navarro appears bleeding from his eyes next to the words “Animal Testing Kills: Choose Cruelty-Free.”
“They’re not taking a bunny rabbit and putting mascara on it. They’re injecting a chemical directly into its eye to see what kind of adverse reaction happens to it”, Navarro stressed in an on-set PETA US interview. “In many cases, parts of their body are ripped open. They’re all alive, and they’re all aware. It’s torture for the animal – it’s terrifying and painful and probably one of the cruellest things done in the name of vanity.”
To test cosmetics, rats, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits and other animals are force-fed chemicals or have harsh substances dripped into their eyes or rubbed onto their raw, abraded skin – even though the results of animal tests are not applicable to humans. Although these tests are required in China and some other countries, they have been banned in the EU and Israel and are not required in the US. Fortunately, many companies – including Urban Decay, Paul Mitchell Systems, The Body Shop, and more – are certified “cruelty free” under the internationally recognized Humane Cosmetics Standard and do not test their products or ingredients on animals. A list of compassionate companies is available here.
This is Navarro’s second ad campaign with PETA. He first posed in PETA’s famous Ink, Not Mink series, in which he bared all but his tattoos to protest the cruel fur industry.
