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Anita Roddick

The Body Shop · Littlehampton, UK

Built a global cosmetics brand on the radical idea that beauty could be ethical, refillable, and unphotoshopped.

Activist brandingRefusal of vanity advertisingSupply-chain ethics
Anita Roddick
T
Company
The Body Shop
Journey

Moves that mattered.

  1. 1976
    Opened the first Body Shop next to a funeral parlour.
  2. 1984
    IPO; refused to advertise.
  3. 1990
    Launched Community Trade — first fair-trade beauty supply chain.
  4. 2006
    Sold to L'Oréal for £652M, donating proceeds to activism.
Struggles

Banks refused her loans as a woman without a 'serious' product.

Family

Married Gordon Roddick; two daughters continued her activism.

The full story

Anita Roddick, in 1 chapters.

  1. Ch 01

    The story

    Built a global cosmetics brand on the radical idea that beauty could be ethical, refillable, and unphotoshopped.

Sources & further reading

Where this story comes from.

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