Is carmine vegan? No: 7 lipsticks checked for CI 75470

No, carmine is not vegan. It is a red pigment made from cochineal, the dried bodies of a female insect, and lipstick labels list it as carmine or CI 75470. Look in the bracketed “may contain” list at the end. In four of the seven lipsticks below, that is where the carmine was.

Maybelline’s Super Stay Ink Crayon shows why the bracket matters. Its main ingredient list names no beeswax, lanolin or honey. Then the bracket opens: titanium dioxide, iron oxides, a run of red, yellow and blue lakes, Red 6 and, last of all, CI 75470 / carmine. One list covers every shade, and the page never says which shade gets the insect. So you can pick the crayon for its clean main list and still go home with carmine, depending on the color. Our guide to telling whether a beauty product is vegan covers the certification marks; this page is about a red that comes from a bug.

Why carmine isn’t vegan, and the names it goes by

US rules define carmine as a lake of the coloring in cochineal extract, mainly carminic acid, and cochineal comes from the insect Dactylopius coccus Costa. The EU’s specification adds the part the US text leaves out, that cochineal “consists of the dried bodies of the female insect”. The pigment is the insect, processed. Shellac comes from an insect too and gets the same answer, which our shellac explainer goes through.

The Vegan Society’s trademark uses “animal” for the entire animal kingdom and rules out any animal product, by-product or derivative. An insect pigment fails that test before you get to the shade name.

On a cosmetic, FDA allows carmine in products used generally and in the eye area, and a cosmetic that falls outside the ordinary ingredient-labeling rule still has to declare carmine at least once. On food, the label has to say cochineal extract or carmine. That rule came out of allergy cases. FDA acted after reports of severe reactions, anaphylaxis included, and the requirements took effect on January 5, 2011.

The labels we read print both names side by side, as “CI 75470 / CARMINE” at Maybelline, “Carmine/CI 75470” at wet n wild, “Carmine (CI 75470)” at Milani. A list written only in EU form can carry the number with no word next to it, and a five-digit number does not exactly leap off a lipstick tube. Learn 75470.

Seven lipsticks, read from the maker’s page

Prices are the makers’ own, read on October 22, 2026, and they change. “Vegan per the maker” means the brand’s own page says so; we did not test anything.

Lipstick	Carmine on the list?	Other animal ingredients listed	Vegan per the maker?	Price
Maybelline Super Stay Ink Crayon	In the may-contain bracket	None named	No claim	$12.99
Maybelline Color Sensational The Creams	In the may-contain bracket	Lanolin oil, acetylated lanolin, beeswax, honey	No claim	$8.99
wet n wild Silk Finish Lipstick	In the may-contain bracket	Beeswax	No claim	$1.69
Milani Color Statement Lipstick	In one shade group’s may-contain line	Beeswax; lanolin in some shades	No claim	$8.95
wet n wild MegaLast Liquid Catsuit High-Shine Lipstick	No	None named	In its Vegan Makeup collection	$5.49
Milani Color Fetish Balm Lipstick	No	None named	“100% vegan formula”	$14.00
e.l.f. O FACE Satin Lipstick	No list on the page	No list on the page	“100% Vegan”	$10

Maybelline Super Stay Ink Crayon Matte Lipstick

The crayon from the opening. Carmine is the final entry of its may-contain line, after Red 7 and Red 6. Maybelline makes no vegan claim for it, and the page gives no shade-by-shade list, so you cannot rule carmine out for the color you want. $12.99 on Maybelline’s site. Skip it, or write to Maybelline about your shade before you buy.

Maybelline Color Sensational The Creams

Lanolin oil is the first ingredient. Acetylated lanolin, beeswax and honey follow further down, and carmine closes the may-contain line. Four animal ingredients before the color question even comes up, for $8.99. Its sister line, The Mattes, drops carmine from the bracket but keeps beeswax and honey, so neither belongs in a vegan makeup bag.

wet n wild Silk Finish Lipstick

The cheapest tube here at $1.69. The list runs castor oil, a handful of waxes including beeswax, then a may-contain bracket that opens with Blue 1 Lake and puts carmine second. Same brand as one of the picks below, which is exactly why the brand name on the tube settles nothing.

Milani Color Statement Lipstick

Milani deserves credit for printing a separate ingredient list for each group of shades. Read them, though, and every group we read lists beeswax, one also lists lanolin and acetylated lanolin alcohol, and that same group’s may-contain line includes carmine. Milani says the line is never tested on animals, which answers a different question. $8.95. Walk past it.

wet n wild MegaLast Liquid Catsuit High-Shine Lipstick

Our pick for a red on a budget. The shade we read, Bad Girl’s Club, lists neither carmine nor beeswax, and its colors come from iron oxides, Red 6, Red 7 Lake, Red 28 Lake and other lakes. wet n wild files it in its Vegan Makeup collection, though the product page itself never uses the word. $5.49. The catch is that the vegan signal lives on a collection page, not on the tube, so check that the shade you pick is still in that collection.

Milani Color Fetish Balm Lipstick

The pick if you want to read the list for your exact shade. Milani calls it a “100% vegan formula”, prints a list per shade, and the shades we read get their color from iron oxides, Red 7 Lake, Blue 1 Lake and, in one, Red 28 Lake. Carmine appears nowhere on the page. The downside is fragrance. Limonene, citral and linalool are on the list, so skip it if scented lip products bother you. At $14.00 it is also the dearest of the vegan three.

e.l.f. O FACE Satin Lipstick

e.l.f. marks it “100% Vegan” and cruelty-free on the product page and sells it for $10. What the page does not show is an ingredient list, so you cannot read the colors yourself. The same page says e.l.f. is always vegan, which makes the badge a brand-wide promise, and without a list it is one you take on trust.

How to check a label yourself

Skip the shade name. “Crimson” or “berry” on the front promises nothing either way. Go straight to the ingredient list and look for carmine, cochineal extract or CI 75470, and keep reading past the last ingredient into the bracket, because that is where the colors live.

When the bracket covers every shade at once, as on the Maybelline crayon, you cannot tell from the page whether your color has carmine. Either find a per-shade list, as Milani prints, or ask the brand about the shade by name.

Give eye products the closest read. FDA’s table of cosmetic colors marks carmine and iron oxides as allowed in the eye area and D&C Red No. 6 and No. 7 as not allowed there. A lipstick can get its red from those two synthetic dyes; a red or pink eyeshadow cannot, so its options are narrower. If an eye product lists CI 75470, put it back and look for one colored with iron oxides, which run warmer, toward brick and rust.

Ingredients settle only half of it. The Vegan Society’s standard also rules out animal testing, and a synthetic red tells you nothing about that. Red nail polish deserves the same read, and our nail polish brand checks show what it looks like on real bottles.

FDA concluded that cochineal extract and carmine “may cause potentially severe allergic responses in humans”. If you have reacted to a red cosmetic before, take the product’s label to a doctor or an allergist.

For a vegan red today, start with the Milani Color Fetish Balm if you want a list for your shade, or the wet n wild Catsuit if you want to spend under $6, and our roundup of vegan drugstore makeup brands has the rest of the aisle.