A small open white jar of face cream sits on a pale limestone shelf beside a folded cotton cloth, with a sprig of orange calendula flowers lying in front of it in soft morning light.

Best vegan moisturizers: 7 that pass, and the drugstore classic made with lanolin alcohol

Our pick is e.l.f.’s Holy Hydration Face Cream in the fragrance-free version: $13, from a brand that calls everything it makes vegan. For the lowest price, The Ordinary’s Natural Moisturizing Factors + HA is $6.70 and flagged vegan on its page. Skip Eucerin’s Original Healing Cream, which lists lanolin alcohol.

The word I’d read twice on any moisturizer is “fragrance”. LXMI sells its Crème du Nil as vegan and free of synthetic fragrances, and its full ingredient list still ends with fragrance, marked with an asterisk that points to a natural ginger oolong. The FAQ adds that the scent is used at 0.5% and says labeling rules make it list that as fragrance. The FDA’s own page is looser: fragrance ingredients can be listed simply as “Fragrance”, and the law treats ingredients from plants the same as those from any other source. So on a label without LXMI’s footnote, that one word tells you nothing about where the scent came from, and nothing about whether it will bother your skin. If you want the full method for reading a beauty label, our guide to telling whether a beauty product is vegan walks through the marks.

Nine moisturizers, and the line on each label that matters

All nine read on the makers’ own US sites in October 2026: seven that pass, one to ask about and one to put back.

MoisturizerVegan, per the maker?FragrancePrice when read
e.l.f. Holy Hydration Face Cream, fragrance-freeYes, brand is 100% veganFragrance-free$13
The Ordinary Natural Moisturizing Factors + HAYesNone listed$6.70
Sonsie Multi Moisture CreamYes, plus Leaping BunnyFragrance-free$48
Veriphy Self Absorbed Facial MoisturizerYes, plus Leaping BunnyFree of fragrance$68, 50 mL
LXMI Crème du NilYesNatural fragrance, 0.5%$58
Kinship Supermello Gel CreamSold as veganHint of vanilla$38, 1.75 oz
Biossance Squalane + Omega Repair CreamYes, per its FAQFragrance-free$60, 50 mL
CeraVe Moisturizing CreamNo claim; lists cholesterolFragrance-free$14.99
Eucerin Original Healing CreamNo claim; lists lanolin alcoholFragrance-freeNot shown

e.l.f. Holy Hydration Face Cream, fragrance-free

This is the one I’d hand to a friend with fussy skin and a small budget. e.l.f. lists it at $13 and labels it 100% vegan, cruelty-free and fragrance-free, and the brand’s footer says it is always vegan and has Leaping Bunny approval. The page highlights hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, peptides, squalane and vitamin B5, and the full list behind them also carries stearic acid and sodium hyaluronate. Squalane can come from shark liver, and the other two can go either way too (see the table further down); e.l.f. doesn’t name a source for any of them on the page I read. Its brand-wide vegan claim is what covers that, so you are taking e.l.f.’s word for it, and for a brand that says the same of every product it sells I’m happy to.

Skip it if you want a third-party vegan mark on the tube. e.l.f.’s vegan claim is its own, and Leaping Bunny is a certification about animal testing.

The Ordinary Natural Moisturizing Factors + HA

$6.70 on The Ordinary’s US site, the lowest sticker price of the eight here that show one. The page has a highlights box, and two of its lines read vegan: yes and cruelty-free: yes.

That box earns its place, because the ingredient list is a run of names that can go either way. Sodium hyaluronate, urea, stearic acid and lecithin are all on it. Stearic acid alone can be animal, plant or synthetic in origin, and sodium hyaluronate can come from biotechnology, plants or animals. Without the vegan flag you would be emailing the brand about at least two of them. With it, you aren’t.

Two flaws. The Ordinary warns that its formulas change and the list on the site may differ from your box, so read the box when it arrives. And if your skin is very dry, the Sonsie, with 12% glycerin by Sonsie’s own figure, is the one built for it.

Sonsie Multi Moisture Cream

The dry-skin pick. Glycerin is the second ingredient, at 12% by Sonsie’s own figure, with 0.5% hyaluronic acid and squalane third on the list. Sonsie calls it vegan, fragrance-free and Leaping Bunny Certified, and its FAQ answers the smell question directly: there is no scent. The brand also says it is clinically tested safe for sensitive skin and dermatologist tested, and suggests a thick layer as a 20-minute mask or the last step of a night routine. It was $48.

The squalane’s source isn’t named on the page. Sonsie’s vegan claim covers it. If you want the squalane’s source in writing, LXMI below names its own and Sonsie doesn’t.

Veriphy Self Absorbed Facial Moisturizer

Veriphy prints the whole list, and it is long: water, glycerin, caprylic/capric triglyceride, isopropyl palmitate and on through avocado oil, algae extract, sodium hyaluronate crosspolymer, phospholipids and glycolipids. Under it sit the claims: vegan, Leaping Bunny Certified Cruelty-Free, and free of parabens, phthalates, mineral oil, silicones, sulfates and fragrance.

PhytoSpherix, the trademark on the front, turns out to be Veriphy’s name for a plant-derived glycogen from non-GMO Ontario sweet corn, and it sits on the list as plain glycogen. I’d rather the front said glycogen. The price is the real problem. At $68 for 50 mL it costs more than five of the e.l.f. jars by our arithmetic, and a subscription only takes it to $54.40. Buy it if you want a cream with no silicones and no fragrance and the price doesn’t sting.

LXMI Crème du Nil

LXMI tells you where its squalane comes from. The ingredient list marks both glycerin and squalane as plant-based, and the FAQ adds that the squalane is from olives. The base is Nilotica shea butter, with hibiscus and vanilla hydrosols. LXMI calls it vegan, plant-based and cruelty-free, and it was $58 with or without the copper applicator wand. The Nilotica, it says, is harvested by fair-trade women’s cooperatives in Uganda. That is a claim about the supply chain rather than the skin, and it is the brand’s own.

The fragrance is the catch, and LXMI says so itself: it is gently scented, with the ginger oolong scent listed as fragrance. If fragrance is what makes your skin react, choose one of the four here that pass and are sold as fragrance-free instead.

Kinship Supermello Gel Cream

The gel-cream in the set, for people who find a classic cream too heavy. Kinship sells it as made with clean, vegan ingredients and lists lanolin on its “No-No List” of things it leaves out. The list opens with aloe leaf juice, water, glycerin, isopropyl palmitate and mango seed butter, and it includes squalane, lecithin, sodium hyaluronate and a lactobacillus ferment. Kinship says it smells of a hint of natural vanilla.

It was $38 for 1.75 oz, or $62 for 3.3 oz. Kinship’s vegan wording is about its ingredients, and its page also calls them cruelty-free ingredients rather than naming a testing certification. If a Leaping Bunny is a must for you, the e.l.f., the Sonsie and the Veriphy pages name one.

Biossance Squalane + Omega Repair Cream

Biossance answers the question I’d have asked about the name. Its FAQ asks whether the omega fatty acids come from fish, and the answer is no: the cream is vegan and the omegas are plant-sourced. The ingredient notes go further than most brands bother to. The acai berry sterols are described as a plant sterol that is an alternative to animal-derived cholesterol, and squalane sits third on the list, after water and caprylic/capric triglyceride. Biossance’s squalane oil page says its squalane comes from sugarcane, and that squalane was traditionally harvested from shark liver.

It was $60 for 50 mL, with a 100 mL jumbo size too. That puts it in Veriphy territory on price. Its FAQ says the cream is fragrance free and contains no essential oils.

CeraVe Moisturizing Cream

Ask before you buy this one. CeraVe’s full ingredient list includes sodium hyaluronate and cholesterol, and the page makes no vegan claim. Cholesterol for cosmetics has commonly been extracted from lanolin or from cattle, and it can also be made from plants, so the name alone can’t tell you which is in the tub. The page calls the formula fragrance-free and allergy-tested, and it was $14.99. Until CeraVe tells you where its cholesterol comes from, the e.l.f. is the safer buy. CeraVe also says its website list can change and to check the package.

Eucerin Original Healing Cream

Put this one back. Eucerin’s ingredient data for the cream lists seven ingredients: water, petrolatum, mineral oil, ceresin, lanolin alcohol, phenoxyethanol and piroctone olamine. Lanolin alcohol is listed in the COSMILE ingredient database as animal or synthetic in origin, and Eucerin makes no vegan claim on the page. Eucerin also says its website list can differ from the packaging and to check the box. Unless the box or the brand tells you the lanolin alcohol is synthetic, treat it as wool. Our answer on whether lanolin is vegan covers the other names it hides under.

Names on a moisturizer that can come from an animal

None of these settle anything on their own. They are the names that make a vegan claim worth having.

On the labelPossible origin
SqualaneTraditionally shark liver; also sugarcane and olives
Stearic acidAnimal, plant or synthetic
Sodium hyaluronateBiotechnology, plant, animal or synthetic
Lanolin alcoholAnimal or synthetic
CholesterolLanolin, cattle, or made from plants

When one of these is on a jar with no vegan claim, ask the brand where it comes from. When the jar carries a vegan claim, the question is whose claim it is: every vegan statement on the seven that passed comes from the brand itself, and the Leaping Bunny named on three of them is about animal testing.

If your skin reacts to fragrance

Then the fragrance line matters more than the vegan one, because every cream that passed here already says it’s vegan. The FDA says some components of fragrance formulas may cause allergic reactions or sensitivities for some people, and its advice for anyone concerned is to choose products that are fragrance free and check the ingredient list carefully. It also warns that even some products labeled “unscented” may contain fragrance ingredients.

Four of the creams that pass are sold as fragrance-free: the e.l.f., the Sonsie, the Veriphy and the Biossance. The Ordinary’s list names no fragrance. LXMI and Kinship are scented. CeraVe and Eucerin also call theirs fragrance-free, which doesn’t change the vegan question for either. If you’ve reacted to a cream before and don’t know why, a dermatologist can help you work out which ingredients to avoid, and that list is worth more than any pick on this page.

Which one to buy

Buy the e.l.f. if you want one jar that is cheap, fragrance-free and vegan by the brand’s own word. Buy The Ordinary if price is everything and you’ll read the box. Pay for the Sonsie if your skin is dry and you want a scent-free cream with a Leaping Bunny on it. Choose LXMI if you want the squalane and glycerin sources named and don’t mind a light scent. Hold off on the CeraVe until the brand answers the cholesterol question, and skip the Eucerin.

A moisturizer goes on before sunscreen in the morning, and our vegan sunscreen roundup names the zinc one that isn’t vegan.

Sources

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Tara Weaver
Tara Weaver

Tara has been vegan since 2012. She cooks for fun, invents dishes for the site and has tried more vegan beauty products than she can count. She writes about beauty and personal care, fashion and materials, everyday vegan living, the ethics debates and the recipes. No formal training, plenty of practice, and a firm belief that dinner should taste good first.

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