Anita Roddick

It was voted the second most-trusted brand in the United Kingdom, and 28th top brand in the world.

Dame Anita Lucia Roddick (23 October 1942 – 10 September 2007) was a British businesswoman, human rights activist and environmental campaigner, best known as the founder of The Body Shop, now The Body Shop International Limited, a cosmetics company producing and retailing natural beauty products which shaped ethical consumerism.

The company was one of the first to prohibit the use of ingredients tested on animals in some of its products and one of the first to promote fair trade with developing countries.

Roddick was involved in activism and campaigning for environmental and social issues, including involvement with Greenpeace and The Big Issue.

Roddick opened her first Body Shop in Brighton, England in 1976, with the goal of earning an income for herself and her two daughters while her husband was away in South America.

She wanted to provide quality skincare products in refillable containers and sample sizes, all marketed with truth rather than hype.

She opened her second shop six months later.

On her husband's return, he joined the business.

It was 1976, the year of the heatwave, so there was a lot of flesh around.

We knew about storytelling then, so all the products had stories.

We recycled everything, not because we were environmentally friendly, but because we didn't have enough bottles.

It was a good idea.

What was unique about it, with no intent at all, no marketing nous, was that it translated across cultures, across geographical barriers and social structures.

It wasn't a sophisticated plan, it just happened like that.

In 1990, Roddick founded Children on the Edge, a charitable organisation which helps disadvantaged children in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.

She believed that business should offer a form of moral leadership, being a more powerful force in society than religion or government.

In the late 1990s, she became involved in advocating for the Angola Three, African-American prisoners at the Louisiana State Penitentiary who had already been held in solitary confinement for decades.

She helped raise international awareness and funds to aid in their appeals of flawed trials.

By 1991, the Body Shop had 700 branches, and Roddick was awarded the 1991 World Vision Award for Development Initiative.

In 1996 she told Third Way:

The original Body Shop was a series of brilliant accidents.

It had a great smell, it had a funky name.

It was positioned between two funeral parlours—that always caused controversy.

It was incredibly sensuous.

In 1997, Roddick developed the Body Shop's most successful campaign ever, creating Ruby, the size 16 doll, who was thought to bear a passing resemblance to Barbie.

The campaign evolved from positioning developed by ethical communications consultancy Host Universal.

They created the image of the naked red-haired doll, hands behind her head and wind in her hair, that became the embodiment of the campaign.

The photographer was Steve Perry.

In a May 2002 article in The Globe and Mail, Jon Entine reported that Roddick had copied the name, concept and original brochures from the original Body Shop which was started in Berkeley, California in 1970 and had three stores when Roddick visited the Bay Area in the early 1970s.

Roddick's original brochures were verbatim copies of material produced by the Berkeley-based Body Shop.

When Roddick decided to expand her multinational corporation into the United States, she bought the rights to the Body Shop name for $3.5 million from the original shop owners, who were required to sign a confidentiality agreement at the time.

By 2004, the Body Shop had 1980 stores, serving more than 77 million customers throughout the world.

On 17 March 2006, L'Oréal purchased Body Shop for £652 million.

Some controversy and criticism was raised, as L'Oréal was known to use animal testing and the company was part-owned by Nestlé.

The latter had been criticised for its treatment of third-world producers.

Roddick addressed the issues directly in an interview with The Guardian. It reported that:

"...she sees herself as a kind of 'Trojan horse' who by selling her business to a huge firm will be able to influence the decisions it makes. Suppliers who had formerly worked with the Body Shop will in future have contracts with L'Oréal, and whilst working with the company 25 days a year Roddick was able to have an input into decisions."

Roddick was known for her campaigning work on environmental issues and was a member of the advisory council for the think tank, Demos.

However, despite Roddick's high profile statements regarding The Body Shop's charitable mission, it did not make charitable donations for its first 11 years of operation.

As a consequence the original Body Shop renamed itself Body Time and remained in business until April 2018.