Starting With The Tried And Tested

While in San Francisco in 1970, Anita Roddick visited a tiny hippie shop on Union Square owned by Peggy Short and Jane Saunders, two sisters by marriage.It was a fun place, offering “biodegradable” shampoos and lotions made with avocado, cocoa butter, and cucumber, packaged in small, round plastic bottles with hand-written labels that were refillable at a discount.The store carried freshly made glycerin soaps scented with strawberry and lemon and perfume oil redolent of gardenia, woody sandalwood, and honeysuckle. It was housed in CJ’s, a car repair garage so the two founders cleverly named it The Body Shop.

When Anita opened her first shop six years later,she used the original Body Shop as a template.The original Body Shop brochure noted: ‘All of our products are Biodegradable & made to our specifications (Bottles 20 cents or bring your own).’ Anita’s version read: ‘All our products are biologically soft and made to our specifications (Bottles 12p, or bring your own).’The original offered Four O’clock Astringent Lotion; Anita sold Five O’clock Astringent Lotion.

In 1987 Peggy and Jane accepted $3.5 million from The Body Shop to change their name to Body Time. Read more of this post