The Body Shop

[thursdaygrumbles]

Reading the news today, the body shop was bought recently. They’ve just announced that it’s gone into administration.

What the hell, is this a tax dodge, asset stripping or something else?

every company has to do it’s due diligence, the financial position would have been very clear, banks would have to sign off on it.

It just sounds so dodgy, can anyone enlighten me on why they would have done this so soon after buying it

But it's a nonsense for most people. Even most Vegans don't have an issue with honey. Bees are free range, they aren't compelled into an unnatural life style to suit man, commercial or otherwise, they are not tested on or killed for consumption. Bee keeping us not cruel.

Body shop can’t use the terms vegan and cruelty free though if they continue to use products that aren’t cruelty free.

The mass production of beeswax involves melting beehives, unethical handling of honeybees and clipping the wings of the Queen.

I am vegan and I agree bees are usually well kept by beekeepers and I buy local honey. However it is important to recognise the difference between small scale beekeeping and large industrial farming of bees for honey and beeswax - it’s not “nonsense”

This is from the Sunday Times business section, from an article by Mark Constantine, of Cosmetics to Go and Lush.

L’Oréal moved manufacturing to the Philippines, where the margins were better, and marketeers discounted to create sales — and for a decade, that was the only message customers got. But you can’t cheapen everything, remove the values and take more profit without the customers noticing and going elsewhere. They lost that feeling one got when buying a Body Shop product — that you were helping to change the world.

Customers and staff who believed in it left, and some came to us. L’Oréal got out, amazingly selling to Natura for a good price. But Natura’s ambition caught it out. It had purchased part of Avon, a brand popular in Russia, borrowing heavily. When war broke out between Russia and Ukraine, and interest rates marched upwards, they had no money left for the investment the Body Shop so desperately needed.

I have boycotted The Body Shop for quite some time, I'm not sad to see them go

Loved of their skincare and the make up was quite good as well. Haven't brought from there for a while so had a look and the priced have shot up! Not surprised it's all gone wrong with the competition out there..along with all their other mistakes as well.

Sad though..always used to get the bubble bath and shower gel as a Xmas gift when was younger. The coke smells and whatever else it was

Neal's Yard beauty sleep body butter is similar to the body shop but more complex aromas and for me, slightly better formulation.

They lost that feeling one got when buying a Body Shop product — that you were helping to change the world.

Christ, what a load of bollocks.

Did they ever try to back track from the JKR issue or did they double down?

A few months ago I went on their website and searched 'women' and got zero hits, I then searched 'men' and got 38 results, I was a keen BS customer years ago, don't demember seeing many men in there buying Dewberry and body butters...

I loved them as a teen/young woman because I was a vegetarian and very into my animal rights and they were unique in that way. I was so disappointed when they went to L'Oreal!

I went in one in Leeds to return something and asked for a refund (not because of them going to L'Oreal, I'd bought the wrong product) and when the assistant suggested a credit note instead I told them I wouldn't be purchasing anything from them any longer-I didn't expect it but she got SO annoyed with me about it! was quite rude. I suspect looking back that she'd been hearing people say things like that constantly!

They used to be ethical and profitable, and managed to fuck up on both fronts.

I predict this will end up a case study for marketing and business students.

It's not actually, back in the 80's if you were heavily into the ethics of helping small farmers, not testing on animals, reusing plastic etc then they were quite revolutionary

I used to love Body Shop but like many others I haven’t set foot in there since the JKR nonsense. I walked past frequently though and their shop was always empty. I’m surprised they lasted as long as they did.

What do you mean “nobody WOULD give a shit”? Clearly we did.

Nope, the prices weren’t my concern. I stopped shopping with them as a direct result of their behaviour towards JKR. As did many on this thread according to previous posts, as did many across the country. Now they’ve gone bust. Doesn’t look like a random coincidence.

I don't understand how they managed to get it so wrong. Everyone says they would love to be able to buy the old favourites, everyone finds them overpriced. Back to basics would have been such a simple way to turn the business around.

The owners are the problem. They're not interested in being innovative or ethical or nostalgic, they want a nice, safe product with good profit margins (which generally means worse ingredients and poor ethics) for a return on their investment. The result is bland crap which we've seen over and over again - look at Accessorize which used to have a indy/India vibe. Now it's the same boring nothingy shit you see in every chain.

The private equity owners are only ever interested in how much an asset (and that's all the Body Shop is to them) is worth and how much they can flog it on for. If the business is failing, they'll asset strip it and chuck the carcass to the administrators. Look at what they did to Debenhams.

I wonder if Next will buy the rights like they have with so many other companies.

To be fair, this is like Nivea, and Nivea for MEN. Women are the default for these kind of products. The opposite is tools, and tools for WOMEN, in PINK!

of course the bath pearls.

As mother of teens in the 80s I loathed bloody bath pearls, they acted like the stuff sprayed on oil spills and created an awful sludge on the side of the bath that was hard to shift!

@GellerYeller I use hand cream from either Nature Republic or Sephora. Unfortunately the Sephora scent I like (Mango) appears not to be available in the UK 🙄 but I imagine their other scents are the same formula and are just as good.

Not surprised at all. I was a customer but stopped when it decided it didn't know what a woman was any more. Plus attacking JKR. Go woke, go broke.

They discontinued some of my favourite ranges. I loved the sensitive stuff. They changed everything to vegan at the expense of some of the formulas.

They are no longer the only cruelty free/ fair trade company now. Many companies do it far better and don't attack their customers.

They are to pricey for what they are selling. What they sell are not considered a full luxury treat product for me, yet it's out of my everyday price range. For example I used to buy the shower gels once every couple of months for a change from my normal one, it was a little bit more expensive but not enough to put me off to mix it up a bit in the shower. Last time I attempted to buy a shower gel I thought "how much, nope no way" and put it back. If I'm spending that much I'm definitely having something really nice.

I hate been jumped on in shops, I avoid lush for this reason. Last time I went in I wanted some shea hair and body oil (apparently discontinued now), the shop assistant told me they had never stocked it (she had been there years and it was never stocked), I must be confused and it has always been coconut oil. I walked out. I have the bottle at home and it is shea body oil.

They did a Baby Burriti range. Bought it when my daughter was born 12 years ago. Used it for a while as I loved the product then it was gone. They discontinued lots of my favourite things over the years.

I'd love them to do an 80s and 90s revival of Dewberry,Ananya, animal shaped soaps,the perfume oil bar,etc in the old style packaging. I'm sure people would flock back. Myself included.

Since they made the white musk body spray vegan,that smells awful now too 😔

I also seem to remember someone on here who said they worked for them and did an AMA or similar. Loads of people said they should go back to the Fuzzy Peach/perfume bar/Dewberry days. Why don’t they listen??

This was a few years ago and I think before JKR.