Vegan drugstore makeup brands: 7 compared, 1 fully vegan

e.l.f. Cosmetics is the drugstore brand you can buy without reading the back: every product is vegan, and it is certified cruelty-free by both PETA and Leaping Bunny. For less money, essence and wet n wild come close. Milani, Physicians Formula, CoverGirl and NYX are cruelty-free but only partly vegan, so you shop their vegan lines, not the brand.

In 2018 CoverGirl became, in its owner Coty’s words, the largest makeup brand to be Leaping Bunny approved. When we typed “vegan” into the search box on CoverGirl’s US site on 18 October 2026, it returned 0 results. The vegan products do exist. CoverGirl describes its Clean Fresh collection, 22 items when we looked, as made with 100% vegan ingredients, so you just have to know the name of the line, because the brand will not walk you there. The bunny on a pack tells you how a product was tested, not what is in it, and CoverGirl’s own FAQ says so in as many words. If you want the longer version of reading a beauty label, our guide to telling whether a beauty product is vegan goes through it step by step.

How these seven made the list

Nothing here was swatched, worn or tested by us. Every brand got in on published pages read in October 2026, and it had to clear four bars.

It had to be on the drugstore shelf for real. We used Walmart.com, because its listings show who is doing the selling, and counted a brand only if Walmart sold its makeup itself. Its own pages had to say which of its products are vegan, in its own words, and name a no-animal-testing program we could look up. And we had to be able to say from a source who owns it, since that is where most of the arguments in this aisle start.

One fully vegan brand did not make it. Pacifica describes its formulas as 100% vegan, which would put it next to e.l.f. But on Walmart.com, every Pacifica product Walmart sold itself on 18 October 2026 was skin care or makeup-removing wipes; the makeup came only from third-party sellers. If you are happy ordering online, it is worth a look. It just is not a drugstore shelf brand on the evidence we found.

The short list

Prices are the range across each brand’s own listings that Walmart.com sold itself, on the first page of a brand search on 18 October 2026. That is our reading of the page, and prices change weekly.

Brand	Vegan, in the brand’s words	No-testing program it names	Price range on Walmart.com	Our verdict
e.l.f. Cosmetics	All products	PETA and Leaping Bunny	$2 to $19	Buy anything
essence	Owner says its products are vegan; the brand’s own page hedges	PETA lists it as cruelty-free	$2.97 to $10.44	Cheap and probably vegan; check the label
wet n wild	“Most” products	PETA	$1 to $8.98	Buy from the vegan collection
Milani	Over 50 products, labeled	PETA	$6.97 to $16.97	Buy from the vegan collection
Physicians Formula	Many products; some contain beeswax and carmine	PETA	$7.98 to $14.97	Read every label
CoverGirl	Clean Fresh collection only	Leaping Bunny	$4.94 to $15.98	Clean Fresh only
NYX Professional Makeup	Vegan page of 102 products	PETA	$5.97 to $15.97	Vegan page only; skip if the owner matters to you

The seven brands

e.l.f. Cosmetics

e.l.f. says all of its makeup and skin care is never tested on animals and contains no animal ingredients. Its owner, e.l.f. Beauty, says the brand is certified “Global Animal Test-Free” by PETA and also certified under the Leaping Bunny Program, and PETA’s own listing for e.l.f. carries its vegan mark. No other brand on this list has both a whole-range vegan statement from the brand itself and two certifiers named on its own pages.

The downside is price, a little. It is not the cheapest brand here: e.l.f.’s Walmart listings ran from $2 to $19 on the day we read them, while wet n wild topped out under $9. Don’t pick e.l.f. if the only number you care about is the one on the price tag. Pick it if you never want to turn a mascara over in the aisle again.

essence

essence is where the sources stop agreeing, and the price makes it worth sorting out. Its owner, cosnova, puts “100% vegan” on its company timeline, with the line that its products are formulations without ingredients of animal origin; the timeline places that step in 2020. essence’s own vegan page is more careful. It says natural and vegan ingredients are used “whenever possible”. PETA lists essence as cruelty-free, and a PETA shopping piece updated in July 2025 still told readers that not all essence products are vegan and to check the ingredients first.

Then there is the testing line. essence says it has never tested on animals and never will, with an asterisk that reads “in accordance with EU law”. We cannot tell you from the page what that asterisk is doing, and we would rather say so than guess.

It is cheap, $2.97 to $10.44 on Walmart.com, and the ingredient list on the back settles the “probably” for the price of a minute in the aisle. Skip essence if you want a brand whose own page gives you one clear answer.

wet n wild

wet n wild does not claim to be all vegan, and it tells you so: “most” of its products are cruelty-free and vegan as well, and it points you to a vegan collection. That collection held 101 products when we counted it. The brand says it has never tested on animals and that the bunny on its site is from PETA’s Beauty Without Bunnies program.

Its Walmart.com listings started at $1 and topped out at $8.98, the lowest range on this list. Shop from the vegan collection, not the brand. If you want one brand where every product is safe to grab, this is not it. Its owner, Markwins, also owns Physicians Formula.

Milani

Milani’s setup is the easiest of the partly vegan brands to shop. It says all of its vegan makeup is explicitly labeled and kept in one vegan collection of over 50 products with no animal-derived ingredients. Its makeup as a whole is cruelty-free, as certified by PETA, and it does not let others test on its behalf. It adds that it uses plant-based and synthetic ingredients “as much as possible”, which is a nice sentiment and not a promise, so the label is still what counts on anything outside that collection.

It is mid-priced for the aisle, $6.97 to $16.97. Don’t assume a Milani product is vegan because the one next to it on the shelf is.

Physicians Formula

Physicians Formula is the clearest case of cruelty-free and vegan being two different claims. The brand says it is 100% cruelty-free and PETA certified, and that many of its products are vegan, but that some may contain beeswax and carmine. Beeswax comes from bees and carmine is a red dye made from cochineal insects, so both rule a product out. PETA lists the brand as cruelty-free. Its vegan collection held 72 products when we counted.

Its cheapest Walmart.com listing was also the highest floor on this list: $7.98, running up to $14.97. Physicians Formula bought off the shelf on trust is how carmine ends up in a vegan makeup bag. Buy it from the vegan collection, or read the ingredient list for both of those names first. I have stood in front of a bronzer for longer than I would like to admit doing exactly that.

CoverGirl

CoverGirl is the one partly vegan brand here whose testing claim rests on Leaping Bunny. Coty said in 2021 that every CoverGirl product is Leaping Bunny approved, and the brand’s US site says CoverGirl and its suppliers are regularly audited to make sure products and ingredients stay cruelty-free. Vegan is another matter. The brand’s own FAQ answers “Does cruelty-free mean vegan?” with “Not always”.

The vegan products sit in Clean Fresh, 22 items, made with 100% vegan ingredients per the brand. CoverGirl’s Walmart listings ran from $4.94 to $15.98. Buy Clean Fresh, and treat everything else from CoverGirl as unchecked until you have read it.

NYX Professional Makeup

NYX is certified and acknowledged by PETA as a cruelty-free brand, and says it does not test any of its products on animals. Its vegan makeup page listed 102 products when we read it, and Walmart.com had NYX from $5.97 to $15.97.

The catch is the owner, and it is the one reason a reader might skip NYX altogether. PETA’s listing names the brand “NYX Professional Makeup (L’Oreal)”, and if a parent company’s sales in China are a line for you, NYX stays on the shelf.

When the owner is the question

Some vegans will not buy from a cruelty-free brand whose owner sells into a market where animal testing can happen, because the money goes to the same place. Others judge the brand’s own supply chain, because that is what made the product in their hand. No source settles which is right. Here is what the owners say.

L’Oréal, which owns NYX, says it has not tested any of its products on animals in laboratories since 1989. In the same document, it says some health authorities may still decide to test certain cosmetic products themselves, and that this is still the case in China, with an exception since 2021 for some imported non-functional products that come with a safety assessment and a manufacturing certificate. PETA says L’Oréal is not eligible for its cruelty-free list because it sells cosmetics in China that are required by law to be tested on animals by government agencies. So PETA keeps the parent off its cruelty-free list and the brand on it.

CoverGirl is owned by Coty; the Leaping Bunny approval Coty describes is for CoverGirl products. e.l.f. Beauty’s policy covers its e.l.f. Cosmetics, e.l.f. SKIN, Well People and Keys Soulcare brands. essence belongs to cosnova, and wet n wild and Physicians Formula to Markwins. None of the pages we read for the Markwins or cosnova brands raised a parent-company issue of the NYX kind.

Our line: the product decides whether it is vegan, and the owner decides whether you want that company to have your money. e.l.f. is the pick that answers both. If only the product in your hand matters to you, NYX’s vegan page is a fair place to shop.

Reading the label in the aisle

A no-testing logo and a vegan claim answer two separate questions. Only e.l.f. says every product it sells is vegan; the other six either say otherwise or leave it to the label. On a makeup label the names to look for are beeswax, carmine, lanolin, which comes from sheep’s wool, and shellac, a resin from lac insects that our shellac explainer covers in full. If a brand runs a vegan collection, use it, because that is the brand doing the reading for you.

Buying it

Start with e.l.f. if you want one brand you never have to second-guess. Go to essence or wet n wild when the budget is tight, and read the back of the essence pack until the brand’s own page says what its owner says. For everything else, shop by line: Milani’s labeled vegan collection, Physicians Formula’s vegan collection, CoverGirl’s Clean Fresh, NYX’s vegan page. The same habit works for food, which is why our guide to checking whether ingredients are vegan is the one to keep open on your phone next time.