How L'Oréal Is Working to Destroy Animal Testing

Testing cosmetic products on animals is still legal in the United States, but thanks to 3D printing, the harmful practice could soon become obsolete. L’Oréal USA, the largest subsidiary of the number one cosmetics group in the world, has partnered with bioprinting company Organovo Holdings, Inc. to combine its advancements in skin engineering with Ogranovo’s 3D bioprinting technology.

Since the 1980s, L’Oréal has been using skin reconstruction models to test its beauty products and determine their safety. The models, grown in labs from donated skin cells, are used to test around a thousand formulas and hundreds of specific ingredients each year. For this testing, the company produces 130,000 units of reconstructed skin annually.

According to the press release announcing the partnership, Organovo’s NovoGen Bioprinting Platform “enables the reproducible, automated creation of living human tissues that mimic the form and function of native tissues in the body,” and works faster than the methods used by L’Oréal. Combining that with L’Oréal’s devotion to scientific innovation and ethical product testing, the collaboration will work to “develop 3-D printed skin tissue for product evaluation and other areas of advanced research.” With manufactured skin that behaves like real human skin, cosmetic companies that still defend the practice of animal testing will be officially out of excuses.

[h/t Discovery News]