Veganuary arrives every January with a lot of noise. Menus change, supermarket aisles expand, and suddenly everyone has an opinion. Some people lean into it, others avoid it completely, and many sit somewhere quietly in between.
For me, veganism did not start with food, it started with skincare.
Long before Olive & Joyce existed, I began questioning what was really in the products I was putting on my skin, not just the ingredients themselves, but how they were sourced, who or what suffered for them, and whether they made sense in the first place. Once you start asking those questions, it becomes very hard to ignore the answers.
Where It All Began
When people ask what vegan skincare means to me, I always say it is about far more than just removing animal derived ingredients. That part is essential; no tallow, no beeswax, no lanolin, no collagen sourced from animals, and no carmine used for colour, but it is only the starting point.
Vegan, in the way I understand it, also means looking closely at where ingredients come from and what their existence costs the planet. It is about questioning supply chains and farming practices, rather than simply ticking a box on a label.
That is why I do not use palm oil. Forests are burned and cleared to make way for palm plantations, destroying habitats and pushing wildlife closer to extinction. Calling a product vegan while contributing to that level of environmental damage never sat right with me.
It is also why I avoid oils grown using heavy pesticides. These chemicals do not stop at the edge of a crop. They seep into rivers, damage soil, and devastate ecosystems, killing bees, harming birds, and wiping out the small animals that shelter in the fields. Once you truly understand that impact, it becomes impossible to justify.
What Vegan Really Means to Me
To me, vegan skincare must be about reducing harm wherever possible, not just to animals we can see, but to the wider web of life that depends on healthy land, clean water, and biodiversity. Protecting animals also means protecting their habitats and food sources. One cannot exist without the other.
This way of thinking is what led me to specialise in vegan skincare for Olive & Joyce. It was never a marketing decision. It was a moral one. I could not build a brand rooted in care and integrity while relying on ingredients that caused harm elsewhere.
That same mindset eventually led me to become vegan myself. It happened gradually, then suddenly. Once I truly humanised animals and allowed myself to see them as sentient beings rather than commodities, there was no turning back.
When It Became Personal
Animals feel pain, stress, fear and comfort. They form bonds, recognise faces, and experience the world in complex ways, and when you begin to see animals through that lens, using them for ingredients or testing becomes deeply uncomfortable.
From a skincare perspective, it also makes very little sense. Testing skincare on animals is a bit like asking a gerbil to give feedback on the latest Coca Cola flavour. The biology is completely different, so the results tell us very little about how a product will behave on human skin.
Animals have completely different skin to humans, from thickness and hair density to pH levels and healing responses. Testing skincare on animals does not reliably predict how products will behave on human skin. It never has, it is outdated, unscientific, and entirely unnecessary.
Despite modern alternatives, millions of animals are still used globally each year for cosmetic and chemical testing, even though these methods often fail to accurately predict how products will behave on human skin.
Modern skincare has access to advanced lab testing, in vitro methods, and human volunteer studies that are far more accurate and ethical. Continuing to test on animals is not about safety. It is about convenience and tradition, neither of which are good enough.
Why This Matters Now
There is also the environmental cost of non vegan skincare, which is often overlooked. Animal agriculture linked to beauty ingredients is a major contributor to deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, and water pollution. When scaled across the global skincare industry, the damage is enormous.
There is a lingering myth that vegan skincare is somehow less effective, that without animal derived ingredients products cannot truly work. In reality, some of the most effective skincare ingredients come from plants. Oils rich in essential fatty acids, antioxidants derived from seeds and fruits, and botanical extracts that support the skin barrier rather than overwhelm it.
Your skin does not need animal products to thrive. It needs nourishment, balance, protection and consistency, and vegan skincare can deliver all of that without compromise.
Veganuary is often framed as a challenge, but I see it as an invitation. A moment to pause and rethink habits we rarely question. Skincare is one of those habits. We use these products every day, often without considering what they represent.
Olive & Joyce was born from that pause, from the decision to create skincare that feels honest, gentle, and aligned with the way I see the world. Vegan skincare was never optional. It was always the foundation.
Every product is made with the belief that caring for your skin should not come at the expense of animals or the planet, that beauty can be effective, ethical, and deeply considered, and that once you start making these choices consciously, it becomes hard to imagine doing things any other way.
If Veganuary encourages even a small shift in how we think about what we put on our skin, then it matters, because these choices ripple far beyond the bathroom mirror and into the world we all share.