Vegan means no animal-derived ingredients are used at all in the formula, while cruelty-free means the product and its ingredients weren’t tested on animals — they’re describing two different things, and a perfume could genuinely be one without being the other.

Why the two labels aren’t interchangeable

A fragrance could, in theory, avoid all animal testing throughout its supply chain and still contain an animal-derived ingredient such as beeswax-related material, making it cruelty-free but not vegan. Equally, a perfume could be built entirely from plant-based and synthetic materials, making it vegan in terms of ingredients, while some part of its wider supply chain or a specific raw material still involved animal testing at some point, which would mean it isn’t strictly cruelty-free. Checking for both claims separately, rather than assuming one implies the other, is the only way to know for sure.

  • Vegan: about the ingredients themselves, not testing practices
  • Cruelty-free: about testing practices, not necessarily the ingredients used
  • A product can genuinely be one without being the other

In practice, many ethically-minded fragrance brands today aim for both simultaneously, but it’s still worth checking the specific claims made rather than assuming one label automatically covers the other.

Reading a brand’s own ethical statement, rather than relying on general assumptions about an entire industry, is the most reliable way to understand where a specific perfume stands on both counts.

Our guide to perfume ingredients and our complete guide to perfume explain this distinction in more depth.