Anita Roddick
(1942- )

From traveling around the world, Anita Roddick got the idea for a lucrative business project. During her lengthy vacation, she learned how women in other societies cleansed and moisturized their skin and hair, and thought that products made from their natural recipes might also have considerable appeal in her native England.

However, Roddick did not pursue the idea immediately. She and her husband Gordon first bought an old Victorian house and converted it into a hotel, and subsequently bought a restaurant. They worked extremely hard, but didn't seem to be getting anywhere. It was only then that Anita told her husband about her natural products idea, and he agreed that she should give it a try. They sold the restaurant and put a friend in charge of the hotel. Anita got a modest loan from the bank and found a small shop in Brighton, England.

'The Body Shop,' says Anita, "fosters a spirit of experimentation and a creative climate in which we produce new products out of old ingredients. We are not afraid to reach into the past, or look at the practices of other cultures, in order to improve what we have here and now--and in the future. The past is our prologue."

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