New allegations may put the clean 'green' reputation of the Body Shop under attack.
But CASSANDRA JARDINE believes they will not tarnish its teenage appeal
THERE was no sign of disquiet among the dozen or so customers mooching around the Body Shop in London's Islington yesterday. Most were barely teenagers, more concerned with killing time in a pleasant-smelling, pop music-saturated shop than anything else.
For them it is like going to a sweet shop. Brightly coloured bottles fill the shelves: there are things to fiddle with, open and smell, items priced for the pocket-money market, leaflets on make-up brushes and exhortations to good behaviour such as "Do you really need a carrier bag?".
You wouldn't expect these teenagers to have read reports that a US ethical fund had advised its clients to sell Body Shop shares because of concern about their ethical stance. Franklin Research and Development, the authors of a report which they are currently discussing with the Body Shop, are worried that its Trade Not Aid policy may oversell the proportion of the retail chain's wares that come from the Third World. They are also concerned about alleged emissions from the company's former factory in New Jersey (the company has insisted there had been only two, non-toxic, emissions).
Such accusations strike at the heart of the Body Shop claims to be that bit different from other cosmetics retailers. Here the predictable table of Back to School wares has been given added appeal by being coupled with the fate of endangered species. "Now you see them, now you don't" is the slogan accompanying pictures of turtles. It seemed to work: two girls were totting up the money that mum had given them and wondering which of two brightly coloured packs to buy - one with a ruler and a pencil, a hairbrush, elephant-shaped soap and a small pot of strawberry bubbles for £5.20 or a more expensive confection with a folded bag.
The endangered species of the month may be the Body Shop's good name. If American research undermines the retail chain's status as the greatest of the good, then it could do it immeasurable harm. So far, all attempts by what the founder, Anita Roddick, likes to call the "cynically nihilistic media" to undermine the phenomenal success of her business have foundered in the courts, but America is Body Shop's biggest new frontier. Bad publicity and a plummeting share price could prove disastrous for the growth in new markets needed to sustain profits - and damage its
image back home.
New Body Shops open each week all over the world as the UK market has flattened out and become less profitable. Just about every bathroom in this country must have some of their refillable opaque bottles made out of recycled plastic. For many years now it has ceased to be a problem to find a present for a teenager; all you have to do is go along to a Body Shop and buy a basket of goodies.
The look has only changed subtly since the early days in l976 when Anita and Gordon Roddick opened their first shop in Brighton. The blackboards with issues on, the window displays with messages are still there, just as they were when the Roddicks moved sideways from running a b & b in Littlehampton. The old standard products, such as the seaweed and birch shampoo that adults remember with affection, are still there but the first impression is of the boxed sets.
In less than 20 years the Body Shop has grown to a chain with more than 1,000 outlets through careful franchising and the tireless efforts of the ubiquitous and quotable Mrs Roddick. From the beginning people were buying a set of ideas as much as a product. The gloopy substances made of banana and pineapple, jojoba and white musk sounded exotic but were never cheap - what made them worth the money was the sense of doing good while treating yourself.
There was always something going on in the shops, making shopping there more interesting than buying the equivalent in Boots. In place of ethereal faces selling dreams of beauty, the Body Shop sold interest in political prisoners or whales and there was a sense of being part of a movement towards capitalism with a heart, business with bicycles for staff.
It hasn't lost that, and from the ferocity with which it defends any attacks on the ethics behind its products or company culture it is plain that it believes that, if they did, it would be a disaster. Becoming a Body Shop devotee is still a rite of passage for a teenager, a place where the young who fear for the planet's future can feel understood. Mrs Roddick is still, at 51, regularly voted the most admired adult in teenage polls, the female equivalent of Richard Branson.
Mrs Roddick's phenomenal energy is largely responsible. Years have not tamed her enthusiasm for castigating the City for being full of bores or business for being unethical. She seems to get as angry as ever about the Gulf war or Aids awareness, homeless people or the destruction of traditional ways of life in the Third World.
Adults may have begun to laugh at some of her self-congratulatory books, full of pictures of her among the Cayapo Indians. Wearied by the coverage of her latest good works and awards, or envious of the enormous wealth of Anita and polo-playing Gordon, they may move on to other Beauty Without Cruelty or hypoallergenic products. But there is no one to replace her T-shirt-wearing, woolly haired enthusiasm as a role model for young would-be entrepreneurs who don't want to see stuffed-shirtdom as the only way to success.
She has tried to keep the older customers loyal through new, more adult orientated ranges from the Mostly Men range to the Mama Toto products for those with babies, from aromatherapy oils to cosmetics, but teenagers are the stores' lifeblood. It is to them, and those who buy for them, that the shops must appeal. Having survived the recession, the Body Shop's main fear must lie in any erosion of its unique pious position.
Going to a Body Shop now it is hard not to feel that although Mrs Roddick may use her corporation to air her views and launch her ideas on New Age employer practices, from staff-owned shops to workplace crèches, the shops themselves are becoming more nakedly commercial. Since the company went public in 1984 they have had to work hard to keep the share price up. Only last month the Roddicks gave into pressure and accepted a more standard, less autocratic management structure.
The whole wall of boxed sets taking pride of place in the Islington branch seemed to shout out: "Profits come first." These plastic-wrapped baskets with their shredded paper filling and stuck-on bows are the quintessence of consumerism, little different from the rest of the cosmetics industry which Mrs Roddick likes to pillory with remarks like "Its major product lines are packaging
and garbage".
"Oh, they love them," said the eager assistant, helping me choose for some teenagers and diverting me from the big sensible wares. "It's the colours, the little bottles. Most of them don't bother to use them, they just collect them. Would you like them gift-wrapped?"
If it offers all that and has its image for saving the world dented, would it spell the end for the Body Shop? Such adults as still shop there for reasons of conscience might desert but it would take a long time for the young to realise that their idols had fallen. They would still have the overt campaigns and the bright little bottles to buy - those would be enough to keep them shopping until the next big new idea, or glamorous figurehead, came along.
