Lovethical is a small business that was created with one very simple idea in mind: to make it easier for people in the UK to find great quality beauty products from vegan and cruelty-free brands, and to make it simple for customers to shop in a way that aligns with their values.

To make that idea a reality, we made Lovethical - an online ethical marketplace where absolutely everything is vegan and cruelty-free (which means that nothing has been tested on animals), and where customers can easily filter the products by a range of other ethical categories too, such as plastic-free packaging, palm oil-free, handmade products or products from 100% vegan companies.

I (Lovethical's founder) spent years realising just how unexpectedly difficult it can be to find truly cruelty-free makeup, skincare, toiletries and beauty accessories. I believe that most of us - if not all of us - would want to buy beauty products that have not been cruelly tested on animals, but clever marketing and hidden practices can often make it tough to identify the genuinely cruelty-free companies from the not so cruelty-free ones.

So, I decided that I wanted to make a website that would help to bring the information to the customer; not only did I want to make it easier for people to shop for vegan and cruelty-free beauty products by collating them all in one place, but I also wanted to highlight the ethical stories, values and backgrounds of the companies that I would be working with.

Behind the scenes, things really started moving at the beginning of 2020, where copious amounts of research, too many cup of teas to count and working around my 9-5 helped me slowly mould the company. One of the first things that needed to be figured out was how I would select which companies to work with, and how I would do my due-diligence to ensure that I only work with cruelty-free companies. Several weeks, lots of reading and multiple phone calls with lawyers later, Lovethical's Cruelty-Free Declaration Form was created. This form is now a key element of my business, because I only work with companies who comply with it; quite simply, if a business is not willing to sign it, then I am not willing to sell their products at Lovethical.

Once the form was finalised it was then a case of securing which cruelty-free brands I was going to bring on board, of getting the website ready, and of doing all the admin tasks involved in starting a business (and it turns out that there's a lot!).

Since opening Lovethical's theoretical online doors in April 2021 I have been able to bring more brands on board, and I have plans to stock a lot more brands in the future, too. Every day I continue to work on Lovethical alongside my 9-5, with the ultimate aims of helping people shop ethically and also helping to promote products that are as kind to the animals as they are to your skin.

I must say a huge thank you to Adam from Tree Tunnel who worked with me to create all of the logos, and he also animated and edited all of our Q&A videos. Tree Tunnel creates video and animation content for non-profits, social enterprises, ethical businesses, social and environmental campaigns, and good causes - go check them out!