The Body Shop transitioning to vegan beauty product formulations

For The Body Shop, vegan beauty equates to environmental sustainability: “Going 100% vegan is a natural next step for us and vegan beauty is a critical next step in our sustainability and environmental endeavors, ​says Lionel Thoreau, Global Brand Director of The Body Shop, in this month’s media release about the formulation certification initiative.

Sustainability at The Body Shop includes vegan beauty and refillable packaging

“This, along with our global refill and in-store recycling programmes,” ​he says, “makes The Body Shop a destination for ethically-minded customers.” ​The Body Shop has plans to make refill stations a fixture in 500 doors around the world this year and in 2022 will add refill stations to at least 300 more locations.

“We want refills to become mainstream - easy and accessible to everyone,” ​says Thoreau. “This is just our first step in a 5-year plan to roll out refill stations across the globe.”​

And Cosmetics Design readers will recall that The Body Shop’s CF Pacific Centre store in Vancouver, Canada, added a shower gel refill station in early March of 2020. ​ “We want our customers to roll up their sleeves and join us in playing with product, recycling, refilling and campaigning for issues that progress equality,” ​said Hilary Lloyd VP of Marketing and Corporate Responsibility at the time.

Those refillable bottles are made of aluminum, a beauty packaging material that’s having something of a renaissance in the emerging circular economy. The Grove Collaborative, for instance, launched its refillable Peach brand deodorants in aluminum packaging​ just last month. And other readily recycled metals are showing up in the beauty refill space too like stainless steel, the packaging material of choice for the refillable deo brand Noniko​.

The Body Shop is aiming for 100% certified vegan beauty by the end of 2023

“Body Shop's ambition to achieve 100% Vegan Trademark certification across their substantial portfolio of formulations demonstrates their solid commitment to deliver the very best in efficacious and planet-loving products,” ​says Chantelle Adkins, Director of Business Development at The Vegan Society​, in her recent remarks to the press.

The Vegan Society in a UK-based was founded over 75 years ago by Donald Watson, Elsie Shirgley and a few other likeminded individuals. Watson and the group are, in fact, credited with coining the term ‘vegan’.

Today, the group’s formal definition of ‘vegan’ reads, “Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”​

And The Vegan Society offers a certification known at the Vegan Trademark for product including fashion and textiles; food, drinks, and supplements; household goods; cosmetics and toiletries; and more.

Known in the beauty industry for its stance against animal testing, The Body Shop also now boasts that 60% of its products are vegan. And just this month, The Body Shop has formally announced that it plans to have 100% of its products certified to feature the Vegan Trademark by the close of December 2023.

The company has opted for this particular certification because, according to the media release, “The Vegan Society represents the global gold standard in vegan certification and takes an extremely thorough approach to certification, checking on every supplier and manufacturer of raw materials.”​