What has happened to Body Shop?

[puddingsforsandy]

Yes I know it was sold off a long time ago but it's unrecognisable in terms of products and prices. Half of the stuff I used to buy years ago like their body butter and perfume oil have really gone up in price. The perfume oil must have changed ingredients as the smell is so weak compared to a few years ago. Their makeup is Mac prices.

The sale stuff are rubbish and still expensive.

Does anyone here still shop there?

Ha ha Suburban I won't forget the name now! Takes me back to my first job interview in London, surprised I got it smelling of that :)

I quite like their BB cream and the coconut body spray. My friend sells their stuff and I get it from her. I went into a shop after Christmas and the saleswoman wouldn't leave me alone so I walked out again. I just wanted to look in peace!

I don't like the way they pounce on you as soon as you enter the shop,, in the good old days they never did that!

However I do insist on buying their hemp hand cream and their brow definer, apart from that it is rather overpriced yes. Actually these two items aren't that cheap either but are really good IMO.

I really miss a lovely hair conditioner they used to sell. Sigh!

I'm amazed they're still going to be honest. The only thing I do buy there is their compact all-in-one make-up. It's almost as good as MAC Studio Fix but is £13 rather than £21...

Yes Bomb Cosmetics do bath stuff and candles. I think these gift sets are quite reasonably priced if you like that sort of thing. bombcosmetics.co.uk/gift-packs/gift-wrap
I definitely don't work for them by the way, I just like their stuff.

The Vitamin E moisturiser is still a fantastic product - the best I've ever used except for ELEMIS Pro-Collagen Marine Cream, which is £££££. I used the regular one in my 20s and the Intense now I am ancient.

The rest is meh though. At least it doesn't make me feel ill like Lush does

I loved their water melon after sun spray. It was delicious.

I'm 38 now and 20 years ago my mate worked for them. She told me the French shops were deliberately more expensive than the British shops because French people didn't trust cheap products. So not that ethical even then.

I'm pretty sure some of the shops were franchises at some point?

I heard that too about the French shops

I worked for The Body Shop in 1990 in one of their company shops and I stayed there for 12 years. In the beginning they were an amazing company to work for. Their ethics were extended to looking after their staff too including money for child care (and that was 20 yrs ago), 50% staff discount and £100 a year for their 'LOVE' (learning is of value to everyone) scheme where you could claim up to £100 to learn something new, few restrictions as to what it was and I went to night school with it. Without it I wouldn't be in the job I have now which is a million miles away from retail and I love it, so thanks BSI. In the beginning we were always told that we were there to help, educate and advise customers NOT to push or sell. When I started there were no targets for sales but after a few years that changed - imo the non pressure worked better.

I was shocked and disgusted with Anita when she sold out to L'Oreal after Id left the company because it was absolutely everything she opposed. We were not even allowed to use Nescafe in the staffroom when I worked there.

It is not a patch on the original Body Shop and I won't ever return and shop there. They have sold out and no longer stands for what it did. Now it is bland run of the mill over priced toiletries - nothing different or innovating and with no ethics only profits.

Ah, Roma perfume and Morello Cherry lip balm! And the smell ofthe little strawberry and banana soaps is the smell of teenage Christmas stockings....

I do buy from them, have been using one of their shampoos for over 20 years and use their facecream, but never at full price.

They are a discount retailer now. There are constant offers, especially if you're signed up online, to the extent that if you can't get 50% off, don't bother.

Oh and fuzzy peach, the cucumber range, esp the toner (my favourite!) and the glass pots for the cherry and kiwi fruit lip balms! I remember being so disappointed when those became plastic.

I used to buy mail-order from CTG too and even went to their little shop in Poole once - in fact somewhere I still have a sneaky nostalgic bottle of Neroli hair perfume. Have never shopped at Lush though as in my twenties my skin became very sensitive and I can no longer use anything perfumed. Haven't bought anything from the Body Shop for around 20 years now....except I went into the concessionary one in our local hospital when a friend was ill, to find that they didn't stock anything that might have actually been useful for someone in hospital. The assistant looked at me like I was a madwoman when I asked if they had an eye mask (the kind for wearing while you're asleep, not the cucumber gel kind!)

Oh, I used to buy from CTG too and also visited their shop in Poole! They went bankrupt without fulfilling my final order. That's about £6.53 in early 90s money please Lush!

I remember when the BS first opened in my town, with hand-written labels. It was a treasure trove of my teenage years and I knew far too much about their product range.

When I was about 12 and first old enough to go shopping with my friends we used to spend hours in Body Shop. A small bottle from there, a pair of novelty socks from Sock Shop and a 17 lipstick were pretty much compulsory purchases each trip. I used to love the perfume bar. I bet the margins on it were non-existent though.

It's a shadow of its former self, now. And presumably the hideously over-pushy assistants in Lush discourage teeny hanging out in there.

forum why do you think she sold to L'oreal? Because she had enough money, lived an unflashy life and then didn't leave money to her DCs but to charity. I just don't get it. I'm hoping she struck some kind of ethical agreement / negotiation with them because it makes no sense.

She clearly ran and developed a great company.

I miss it too. I used to love the smell of the shop and the little bottles that had lovely smelling products in them. I loved their camomile shampoo and peppermint foot lotion.

Banana conditioner!

"And presumably the hideously over-pushy assistants in Lush discourage teeny hanging out in there"

Yes, this makes sense. Although the customer base seems to be fairly youthful. Maybe it's actually to frighten off older, stingier people like myself :D

They should expect a young costumer base when they make fun colourful bath products that smell like sweets

I used to love Lush, I now hate it. I wonder who their target customers are.

my dad used to shop in the Covent Garden store in the late 70s, it was new and cutting edge. He liked the blue ice shampoo and they used to refill which was very radical back then.

I buy the occasional stuff in the sale. I like the rainforest shampoos.

I used to like the pineapple face wash, and elderflower eye gel. there was a cucumber cleanser but it was a bit stingey

Sauce I don't think she ever really explained. I think there was a fluffy thing about hoping to change them from the inside or something but if she genuinely thought that she was being very naive.

It doesn't make sense, Nestle are so opposed to her ethos that I can't see why she would go anywhere near them.

sauceforthegander I have absolutely no idea why she sold out and to L'Oréal. They were the anti christ to her with testing on animals and questionable ethics. like I said before we were not allowed nescafe / nestle in the staff room either. I lost my respect for her after that