When Anita Roddick began developing pint-sized, home-made natural cosmetics out of her Littlehampton, Sussex garage, she wasn't aiming to strike it rich or even save the world. She was filling a gap. Travel-friendly, sample sized cosmetics were unavailable on the market. Roddick filled the niche by taking a $6,500 bank loan and producing cosmetics at home.
Little did she know her garage venture was the spark of an empire's beginnings: the global cosmetics giant The Body Shop.
Rebellious and unconventional by nature, Roddick learned to question society's mores at an early age. During post-teaching degree travels along 'the hippie trail' through Tahiti, Mauritius, Madagascar, Australia and Johannesburg in the 60's, Roddick wrote:
"You change your values when you change your behavior. . .When you've lived six months with a group that is rubbing their bodies with cocoa butter, and those bodies are magnificent or you wash your hair with mud and it works, you go on to break all sorts of conventions from personal ethics to body care. Then, if you're me, you develop this stunning love for anthropology."
Back in England, Roddick and partner Gordon ran a small hotel/restaurant for several years. When Gordon announced his wish to fulfill a dream of riding a horse from Buenos Aires to New York City, Anita knew she would need to support herself and her two children during his two-year absence. Out of necessity, her home garage cosmetics business began.
In the beginning, she packaged the sample sized items in small plastic recyclable bottles - urine sample bottles to be exact - to keep start-up costs low, not to save the environment.
She painted the walls of the garage shop green to hide damp spots but not specifically to show she was environment friendly. As she wrote: "I made no claim to prescience, to any intuition about the rise of the green movement. At the forefront of my mind at that time there was really only one thought: survival."
Soon after, Roddick expanded to a first shop in Brighton "next to a funeral parlor" and when the concept of that first Body Shop gained popularity, she and Gordon - who had returned from his horse adventure - began franchising out.
In her autobiography, Body and Soul: Profits with Principles - The Amazing Success Story of Anita Roddick & the Body Shop, Anita proclaimed, "I hate the beauty business. It is a monster industry selling unattainable dreams. It lies. It cheats. It exploits women."
This mindset led to the Body Shop's unique philosophy: Profits with Principles.
Anita and Gordon endeavored to create social and environmental change. Roddick was not promising to take years off a person's face but instead offered "A two-for-one sale no other cosmetic company could ever hope to match: buy a bottle of 'natural' lotion and get social justice for free."
The Body Shop mission statement includes such assertions as: "..To dedicate our business to the pursuit of social and environmental change…To courageously ensure that our business is ecologically sustainable, meeting the needs of the present without compromising the future. To meaningfully contribute to local, national and international communities in which we trade, by adopting a code of conduct which ensures care, honesty, fairness and respect."
To adhere to the company's 'profits with principles' philosophy, Roddick has foregone conventional advertising methods. First and foremost, feeling that high quality items sell themselves, she does not use money to pay for advertisements.
Instead, a sidewalk is lined with perfume leading into her store or potpourri is hung outside to lure people into the shop. Initially curiosity brought customers inside; recommendations and word of mouth brought them back, often with friends in tow.
The Roddicks do advertise social and environmental change, however, by using store window space and company 'props' to promote environmental groups.
Displays have included Greenpeace lobbying efforts against dumping hazardous waste into the North Sea and company trucks and bags have been used in conveying such social messages. Other campaigns supported include Save the Whales, Amnesty International, rain-forest activism and the Friends of the Earth.
The Body Shop paves the path in fair wage practice by paying developing country employees comparable wages to those earned by their British counterparts. "How can you ennoble the spirit when you are selling something as inconsequential as a face cream?" Anita Roddick once remarked.
Each year, Roddick personally travels to project sites in India, Nepal, Nicaragua, Cuba, etc. where farmers and locals grow herbs and seeds for Body Shop products and Body Shop sponsored programs breathe life into local farming and business communities. Ultimately, Roddick maintains modesty, reminding that company success has been a group effort.
"The Body Shop and I have always been closely identified in the public mind. Today, it is impossible to separate the company values from the issues that I care passionately about - social responsibility, respect for human rights, the environment and animal protection, and an absolute belief in Community Trade. But The Body Shop is not, and nor was ever, a one-woman-show - it's a global operation with thousands of people working towards common goals and sharing common values. That's what has given it a campaigning and commercial strength and continues to set it apart from mainstream business."