The British woman of Italian descent, Anita Roddick (1942-2007), founder of the Body Shop, was an unconventional entrepreneur who managed to leave her unique mark on the business world. She founded a business that soon became known for its respect for the environment, while she herself, as an activist who grew up in the 1960s, managed to raise awareness among a large part of the population on issues related to environmental protection and human rights.
In the 1970s, she decided to invest all her money in beauty products for women, as she said, "women still desire makeup even when they are headed to the guillotine." In 1976, the 33-year-old Roddick opened a store - between two funeral parlors - that would sell cosmetics made from natural ingredients stored in her garage. Being well-traveled, she had noticed that there were no bath products for sale in small or medium-sized packages anywhere. She started with 15 different cosmetics in five different packages each, so that, as she stated, ‘’it would appear that she had at least 100 different products’’. To convince the public to enter her store, she "sprayed" various scents on the sidewalk in front of the store's entrance, as well as inside the store.
She packaged her products in small plastic, recyclable bottles, specifically urine sample bottles. She preferred recyclable packaging, and she painted the walls green to hide the signs of moisture. With all this, she conveyed the image of an environmentally friendly store to the outside world, although that was not her initial goal.
"We recycled everything, not out of respect for the environment, but to save money, since we didn't have many bottles. Fortunately for us, we struck a chord with a large segment of consumers worldwide," said the creator of the Body Shop in 1993, wanting to show that by pure luck, she found herself in the right place at the right time, when the world had begun to become aware of environmental protection issues.
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Soon, the Body Shop would experience great success, and many were the customers who expressed interest in opening branches and promoting the products themselves with natural ingredients. Within just a decade, the Body Shop had a presence on most of the main shopping streets in Britain.
Roddick was not just an ordinary entrepreneur, whose business vision would be limited to selling products. She was a philanthropist, an opponent of animal testing practices, and she promoted environmental issues many years before it became fashionable, convincing millions of people about the importance of ecological products in the mass market.
The fact that she received countless awards, combined with her success in becoming one of the wealthiest women in England, shows that the "real pioneer," as she was called, was far ahead of her time.