Daily Mail

The Body Shop goes back to the future

Lush stole its eco crown. But with a hilariousl­y right-on store opening...

- by Rachel Carlyle

When I bought my first bottle of dewberry shower gel from The Body Shop in the eighties, I wasn’t just hoping the overpoweri­ngly sweet, fruity scent might make me more attractive to the boy I fancied in my history class. I was also hoping to change the world.

Well, not literally, of course: there’s only so much one bottle of purple body wash can do (although it was fairly pungent stuff). But to shop in The Body Shop was like buying into a tiny bit of revolution: the products were cool, affordable, and you felt like you were saving everything from whales and laboratory rabbits to the Brazilian rainforest and entire Amazonian tribes.

To today’s teenagers, Lush has stolen the ethical hippy crown with its homespun feel, sweet shop-inspired bath bombs and even more pungent smells.

But The Body Shop is fighting back with a new ‘concept store’ on London’s Oxford Street that officially opened this weekend and that the late founder, Anita Roddick, would have loved.

There’s an ‘activism corner’ where you can sign up to campaigns and take selfies; one of the high street’s first refill stations for shower gels (what took them so long?); and the shop’s fixtures and fittings are recycled, right down to the stacked green crates on the floor which are leftovers from a UK car seat manufactur­er.

All the old favourites are there — the mango body butter (£15 for 200ml) and white musk perfume oil (£16) — along with some nicely bonkers new products such as the carrot wash (£8.50) and moisturise­r (£14) made from carrots too wonky to sell in supermarke­ts.

‘There’s a feeling that we had to get The Body Shop back to its roots — to go back to what Anita started The Body Shop for in 1976: sustainabi­lity, giving people a voice and giving back to the community,’ says managing director Linda Campbell, who took over in 2017, and was also a dewberry fan in her teenage years.

It’s the refill station that excites her the most. Customers buy a 250ml brushed aluminium bottle for £6, then fill it up with shower gel. They bring the bottle back when it’s finished for a sterilisat­ion and refill for £4, saving £1 on the cost of a plastic bottle of the same gel.

So far two fragrances are on offer: almond, milk and honey and British rose, with two more about to be added (which will change with the seasons) — juicy pear and rich plum.

It’s not the first time The Body Shop has launched a refill service; the first was in the early nineties, when Anita was still in charge. But it was scrapped because it was ahead of its time and customers didn’t take to the idea.

On The other side of the store is the activism zone, clearly designed to appeal to the crusading teenager.

There’s a roll of brown paper on the wall plus pencils and markers so you can scribble down your favourite causes. A screen on the adjoining wall allows you to find out about the latest campaigns and take selfies and make gifs (moving images) with props such as megaphones ( recycled, of course) and placards, which you can send to your mobile. It feels slightly cheesy to me, but then, I guess I’m not 14 any more.

The fixtures and fittings are all on wheels so they can be moved aside for talks and workshops.

Also here is a big cardboard bin to collect donations for the charity Bloody Good Period, which sends sanitary products to those who can’t afford them. The boxes are in 80 Body Shop stores and are proving a huge success. ‘We’ve even had men see the box, then go out and buy a packet of sanitary towels to donate,’ says Linda.

She’s also encouragin­g store managers to come up with their own local campaigns to support. ‘These are not necessaril­y loud and angry — it could be a library that’s closing down or a town that wants more for teenagers to do.’

The company’s latest internatio­nal campaign is classic Body Shop: a community trade tie-up with India’s waste-pickers, the men and women, who gather plastic from rubbish dumps to sell on and live in squalor as society’s outcasts.

The project buys the plastic they collect at a fair price and recycles it to make bottles for all Body Shop’s haircare products.

By 2030 the company wants to have what they call a ‘closed loop’, where all the single-use plastic in store is recycled. To that end, it has launched a returns scheme in stores: bring back five clean, used Body Shop pots and bottles for recycling and get a £5 voucher.

As well as the serious eco- credential stuff, Linda wants to bring back the sense of fun and playful exploratio­n The Body Shop used to have when she shopped there as a teenager in Glasgow.

So in the middle of the concept store is the body butter station: terracotta pots filled with different body butters, alongside spatulas and empty tubs. The idea is that you fill a tub with whatever fragrance you like or a mixture.

There’s also a huge block of shea butter, and you can carve off a free sample and wrap it in paper to take home. It does sound fun, although what the counter will look like after a busy Saturday is anyone’s guess. It’s the kind of thing Anita Roddick, who died in 2007, would probably have loved.

She started with a single shop in Brighton. The walls were painted green to hide the damp and there were just 25 products in plain bottles with hand-written labels. From the beginning her aim was to be an ethical business: she was buying ingredient­s from Amazonian tribes and African women’s co- operatives long before Fairtrade became fashionabl­e. The brand became the first to prohibit animal testing, and always had a strong social campaignin­g feel.

The Body Shop was green long before ecofriendl­y went mainstream. In the early days customers were encouraged to refill their empties, although that was mainly because Roddick didn’t own enough bottles.

Roddick sold out to L’Oreal in 2006, which outraged her loyal green fans. But in 2017 the brand was sold again, this time for £880 million to natura, a Brazilian eco- cosmetics giant that owns natural Australian brand Aesop.

Since then, the company has been on a mission to return to Anita’s original vision. The plan is to create eight concept stores globally next year, then take the best ideas and roll them out more widely among the 241 UK stores.

‘Some people have said, you’re very brave opening a concept store in a retail crisis. But we have been bucking the trend in the UK, and our stores are 4 per cent up on this time last year,’ says Linda. ‘I think Anita would be very proud of what we are trying to achieve.’

 ??  ?? Innovation: The body butter station
Innovation: The body butter station
 ??  ?? Visionary: Anita Roddick in one of her early shops
Visionary: Anita Roddick in one of her early shops

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