While researching Olsenhaus, a brand I was going to write about today, I came across one of the links on their website entitled ‘What the Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know.’ Being incredibly disgusted and mortified by the brutality of animal abuse within the fashion industry, I thought I would post word for word what Olsenhaus taught me and why in fact they are a vegan line of shoes. (My post on those shoes to come. This is by all means far more important than a frilly post about hot eco-shoes.)

Warning…if you wish to be oblivious to the horrible ethics of the fashion industry, don’t read. If you care to be enlightened and morph into a better human being, by all means, read on and prepare yourself for some brutal images.

Many pigs are still fully conscious while they are scalded with boiling water for hair removal.

Fur farmers kill animals using cruel methods of slaughter that cause extreme suffering like anal and vaginal electrocution and skinning alive.

Dogs and cats in China are being beaten, hanged, and strangled with wire nooses so that their fur can be used for garments and accessories.

Producing wool, fur and leather heavily contributes to global warming, land devastation, environmental pollution and water supply contamination.

To produce “Persian Lamb” the mother sheep is killed just before giving birth and the fetus is extracted for it’s pelt.

Wool production involves Mulesing, a barbaric technique where farmers force and restrain live sheep on their back and slice chunks of flesh from their tail area without painkillers.

Cows endure castration, crowding, branding and tail docking without pain relief.

For sources of information and in depth reading check out Olsenhaus’s “truth” page.

“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

“The greatness of a nation and it’s moral progress can be judged by the way it’s animals are treated.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Enough said.