Our Founder Danielle, breaks down her thoughts on the news that The Body Shop is no more, and why its journey is a lesson we can all learn from.
Like most beauty-obsessed millennials, The Body Shop was an integral part of our early beauty memories. From discovering that delicious strawberry lip balm (iykyk) to popping bath pearls by the handful, it was the place I spent my pocket money (much like Sephora kids today), even as a young girl, I knew it cared and had a voice that was worth listening too.
This was all before I understood the powerhouse that was Anita Roddick. As a fellow Brightonian, I would be lying if I said she wasn’t a huge inspiration behind My Skin Feels. Her book ‘Business As Unusual’ is a game changer and she would definitely be at my dream dinner guest table.
Anita changed the face of the beauty industry, what she did was far more than create a brand that sells products, she created a new path, a path based on changing things for the better and one that has allowed so many brands, here’s looking at you LUSH, Neal's Yard Remedies and Lucy & Yak, and I hope My Skin Feels too, to do the same.
To quote Anita: ’My vision, my hope, is simply this: that many business leaders will come to see a primary role of business as incubators for the human spirit, rather than factories for the production of more material goods and services’.
I hope she can see that although things turned out a little differently than she might have expected, she paved the way for others to finish what she started and those early memories of the OG Body Shop are gone but never forgotten.
One day, I dream that My Skin Feels will take over that original Body Shop in the Laines and we will do our bit to tackle the same issues that Anita fought so hard to do thanks to the path that she and so many others have laid out for us to add our part to the story.
To The Body Shop, You were great!