...and why you should never trust fake fur
CHLOE SALVI was having difficulty finding the perfect winter hat on the High Street, so typed ‘fauxfur bobble hat’ into eBay and up popped just what she wanted: a red one with a fluffy bobble.
An animal lover, she double-checked it was faux fur, sent off €5.50 and thought no more about it until the hat arrived a few days later.
‘I could tell it was not faux fur,’ says Chloe, 38, a lighting designer. ‘It was soft and fluffy and the fur floated about when it moved.
‘I parted the fur and it looked like there was skin at the bottom. The hairs were uneven too — both signs it might be real. Faux fur looks mechanically cut and a plastic-y. This was not like that.’
Concerned, she emailed the seller, who reassured her it was fake. But unconvinced, Salvi contacted BBC Watchdog Live, which sent the fur to a laboratory and found it was raccoon dog fur (right). ‘I was really upset,’ she says of her October purchase. ‘I don’t trust eBay any longer.’
Ebay does not have a no-fur policy but expects products to be described accurately. The seller has removed the listing and eBay apologised to Chloe.
Real fur falsely labelled faux is a widespread problem. Last month the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) in the UK warned clothing stores to carry out checks or face sanctions. It has given firms a February 11 deadline to ensure garments listed as fake fur are not made from animals — or face legal action.
Some well-known retailers have been guilty of unintentionally selling real fur. It seems that in most cases the retailers had no-fur policies but their internal procedures were not robust enough. Sometimes suppliers had misled them.
Last month fashion retailer Boohoo became the latest to be caught out. The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) upheld a complaint about a pom-pom jumper sold by Boohoo, which has a no-fur policy. The garment contained real fur, most likely rabbit.
After its exposure by animal charity Humane Society International, Boohoo removed the item from sale and claimed internal testing had showed no real fur.
In a separate ruling, the ASA said Zacharia Jewellers, an Amazon seller, was found selling faux-fur pompom headbands with real fur and had broken rules set by the Committee of Advertising Practice. Partner Dipesh Shah, was ‘devastated’ and had 1,500 of them destroyed. Amazon, TK Maxx, Tesco Direct, Fatface and Boots have also been caught misleading consumers. Experts believe it is just the tip of the iceberg. ‘The problem is particularly acute online and in independent boutiques and markets,’ says Claire Bass of Humane Society International. ‘But we’ve caught out High Street stores too.’
The fur we are buying, without our knowledge, is often produced on foreign farms where welfare regulation can be scant and conditions appalling. Tales abound of animals being cruelly killed.
The sale of animal fur is legal in Ireland —apart from domestic cat and dog fur and from commercial seal hunts, under EU regulations — if it is correctly labelled.
Fur farming still takes place here, despite bans in many other countries including the UK, Japan and Serbia. There are three fur farms where around 200,000 mink are bred and killed each year.
However, our fur industry might soon be coming to a close. The first stage of the Prohibition of Fur Farming Bill 2018 was passed in the Dáil in October.
Meanwhile, other animal pelts are imported from countries such as Poland, Russia and China. The farms can produce fur in such large volumes that real fur can be sold cheaply — sometimes for less than faux.
Claire Bass says online wholesalers can bulk-buy real fur trim for as little as €3.50 for a 70cm raccoon dog fur hood trim, or 35c for a raccoon dog fur pompom.
Meanwhile, the price of faux is climbing. Arnaud Brunois, Faux Fur Institute founder, explains: ‘Faux fur is more expensive as it requires hightech machines. People are trying to dump low-cost real fur as fake to capitalise on faux’s popularity.’
Dr Andrew Knight, an animal welfare and ethics professor, says: ‘Clearly the mechanisms retailers have in place for inspecting suppliers are not working.’
He says it’s this that is driving unscrupulous suppliers to mislead retailers. Under the EU Textile Products Regulation (2011) in order to sell clothing containing animal fur such as chinchilla, mink or fox in Ireland it must be clearly marked ‘contains non-textile parts of animal origin’. But shoes and accessories, such as handbags and key chains, are exempt.
‘Most people would be shocked to learn that there’s no legal requirement for an item with real animal fur to tell you on the label that it is real animal fur,’ says Claire Bass.
Humane Society International recommends three tests for concerned consumers to check faux fur.
First, look at the ends of the fur which tend to taper at the end if real.
Second, look at the fur’s base which, if real, will be an animal skin.
Last, burn a few hairs. Animal hair singes like human hair whereas fake fur melts and smells more like plastic.