General Article Is your fake fur actually real? Here’s how to tell the difference

Topic Selected: Animal Rights Book Volume: 374

Real animal fur can be produced and sold cheaply and is often less expensive for suppliers to use than synthetic alternatives.

By Katie Grant

Leaving the house in a mink coat and raccoon-fur trimmed gloves would once have guaranteed envious glances and a string of compliments, yet today such sartorial choices would be more likely to provoke dirty looks and disdainful comments.

Consumers – including those able to afford the real thing – have turned to the faux alternative in their masses over the past decade.

However, in recent years it has emerged that multiple retailers have been unknowingly selling items containing real fur masquerading as fake.

Online fashion retailer Boohoo is the latest to have been caught out – and not for the first time – by the animal welfare organisation Humane Society International. This week the Advertising Standards Authority announced Boohoo had broken rules by selling a jumper with ‘faux’ fur pom poms that were actually real.

The incident highlights ho...

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