I "rediscovered" TBS about 5 years ago (having had them firmly pegged in my head as '90s purveyors of elephant-shaped soaps and "bath pearls") and found I really liked their stuff, have used them pretty consistently since then. I order several times a year, whenever they have a good offer on (which recently is all the time - as another poster put it earlier this year, soon they'll be paying us to use their products. Not a good omen) and buy people presents from there.
However, in the last year or so they have:
- Changed the eyebrow pencil I liked from a good stiff one to a useless smudgy crayon which literally looks like you've finger-painted your brows on with clay, and half the pencil is this gold "highlighter" thing which is a waste as it gets used at about 10% the rate of the eyebrow bit
- Discontinued my favourite Honey & Oat face mask, which they always touted as an OMG-bestseller and were frequently sold out of, until they abruptly discontinued it to usher in an inferior and much more expensive product
- Discontinued the Rainforest Volume shampoo & conditioner which I used to buy.
But the most recent and weirdest thing they've done is to the plain flannel headbands. I accidentally left mine in a hotel bathroom so nipped into my nearest Body Shop to buy a replacement, and found that they've changed it so that it's a bizarre, tiny little thing with no stretch, so you more or less break your nose and garrotte yourself trying to get it over your head That's such a basic product to get wrong, it suggests to me that they literally don't care any more. I was so cross about the headband that I actually marched it back into the store the next day for my £4 back on a matter of principle, and the shop staff passed it around amongst themselves in disbelief at the change. One of them was so convinced it must be a mistake that she took another one from the shelf out of its packet, but of course it was the same.
It's not even that I'm boycotting them (although I am) so much as that I've literally run out of products to buy from them. Every single thing I was loyal to has been changed or discontinued, the only thing left in their whole offering which appeals to me is shower gel, which I can get absolutely anywhere.
Is it just me?