My apologies for not responding right away, but I have just noticed your message.  

Yes, I have heard how UD has backed out of China, and it has made me wonder why.  I do feel that either of your suggestions is applicable as to WHY the company left, but, in my honest opinion, I don’t know why UD left. 

One could say that UD had a change of heart after reading the thousand responses (on fb alone) to the announcement for China - if you look at the outraged messages left on UD’s fb page - the company may have decided to back out because the loss of current fans/customers.  There is evidence that the company did respond to several questions that were put forth by customers when UD stated that they would answer any and all questions that would be sent to the company.  The total number of messages and letters sent to the company against the decision? The world may never know.  From that I can only speculate, ya know?

Another reason that UD backed out is due to greed.  UD wanted to go because of greed, and UD left because of greed.  In their three paragraph message found on the web store UD states that, “… ultimately we did not feel we could comply with current regulations in China and remain true to our core principles. We know there are many progressive consumers in China who would embrace an opportunity to purchase non-animal tested products - our hope remains that we have the chance to offer Urban Decay products to these consumers someday in the future.”  Simply, UD states that they felt that they could not comply with China’s rules based on the company’s belief systems.  Because of this, one could say that UD did want to change China by altering its policies about animal testing, but it can also be said that the company made a poor choice in HOW they chose to go about it.  

Take for instance LUSH, the company that outright said “no” to China … LUSH not only rejected the idea they stated that they would not expand into China UNTIL China changed its policies, AND also launched a petitioning campaign for storefronts to add their signatures to end animal cruelty in cosmetics.  Now, look at Urban Decay.  UD says, “We will go to China.  We won’t test, but the government will BUT we’re going to change that from within.”  Another way of looking at it is this:  One company chose to forbid a country from selling its product because the principles that began the company still stand.  The company believes that in the product they sell.  It’s popular and great enough that the billions of consumers will demand for it and change society.  The other company said we are going to go forward to “possibly” change the world until we realize we cannot fix it/government won’t budge… At least we made some money/acquired new customers.

My last thought is this.  Could UD have lost backing from the CCIC, the Vegan Society, and several other vegan/cruelty free groups when they announced the move?  How can a company trying to change the world when no one backs them up?  

I hope I answered your question??

My personal choice is that I will not be using UD ever again.  It is really upsetting, because I did happen to like the company’s eye primer, but fooled me once, shame on you.  Fooled me twice, shame on me.