The Body Shop is put up for sale by its Brazilian owner as the skincare retailer loses its edge
The Body Shop has been put up for sale by its Brazilian owner.
The lackluster sales at the skincare retailer convinced Natura, which also owns Avon and the upscale soap brand Aesop, to abandon the brand.
But the Sao Paulo-based personal care cosmetics group said a sale was not guaranteed.
However, the news fueled fears that The Body Shop could fall into the clutches of private equity.
In the second quarter of 2023, sales fell 12 per cent to £130m as the High Street struggled.
Campaign: Lily Cole for The Body Shop, for sale by Brazilian owner
Natura bought The Body Shop in September 2017 for £880 million from cosmetics giant L’Oréal, who owned it for just over a decade.
It was founded by Anita Roddick, who founded the company in Brighton in 1976 and became a favorite among the middle class.
Roddick, who died in 2007 at the age of 64, offered customers discounts if they returned empty containers to refill and advocated for environmental causes.
In recent years, the group has taken on social issues such as menstrual poverty and refugee rights.
There is also a campaign to ensure that 16-year-olds can vote. But analysts say The Body Shop has lost its competitive edge.
Sophie Lund-Yates of Hargreaves Lansdown said the ‘total avoidance’ of animal testing is now common practice in the beauty industry, ‘which means there are fewer marketing tools for the Body Shop to use to entice customers’.
Retail expert Wizz Selvey also said the brand is “currently falling behind” as the popularity of natural skincare products declines.
She added that shoppers are also seeking “lab-made excellence” using biotechnology.