The Body Shop Skin Care Review
9.07/10
Quick Overview
- Difficulty
Moderate
- Cost
Average
- Trial Period
Undefined
The Body Shop is a skin and beauty product retailer with a robust online store and over 2,500 physical locations around the world. The company was founded in 1976 in Brighton, England by Anita Roddick, a human rights activist with a passion for skincare and cosmetics as well as a number of important social issues, including the protection and conservation of our natural environment.
Roddick led The Body Shop as the company's visionary and CEO though the decades until her passing in 2007, one year after the company was sold to current parent company L'Oreal.
Today, The Body Shop continues its mission of delivering the highest quality skin and beauty products at affordable prices, all while maintaining its unyielding commitment to human and animal rights. Although the company outsources most of its manufacturing to third parties, it utilizes strict quality control measures and ensures the sustainability of its ingredient sources while promoting fair working conditions.
The Body Shop offers a line of hundreds of skin and beauty products, including lotions, moisturizers, soaps, hand washes, bath oils, toners, cleansers, exfoliators, masks, eye treatments and more.
The products are relatively affordable, even more so when coupon codes and the company's membership discount program are applied. The Body Shop also offers free shipping on all orders over $50, and happily issues refunds to dissatisfied customers.
The Body Shop provides some of the best customer support in the skin and beauty industry through both its physical locations and online store. You can contact the company toll-free, 12 hours per day, via both phone and email.
The Body Shop's soap products are made by Soapworks, a Glasgow, Scotland-based company that is owned 100% by The Body Shop. All of the company's other products are manufactured by third parties. Despite outsourcing their manufacturing, The Body Shop maintains rigid quality control standards by carefully monitoring their production partners and tracing the source of all ingredients. Representatives from the company visit each supplier at least every two years, and all suppliers must meet The Body Shop's Code of Conduct. This ensures the purity, safety, efficacy and consistency of the finished skin and beauty products sold by the company.
The Body Shop's commitment to quality is apparent in how the company approaches human and animal rights, as well as the sustainability of the environment. The company maintains a charitable organization that has donated over $20 million to projects around the world, ranging from education and conservation to anti-domestic violence initiatives. The Body Shop has made enormous strides towards becoming a carbon-neutral company, and has cut emissions and waste considerably by using recyclable material in product packaging. Animal testing is never used in the development of The Body Shop's skin and beauty products.
The Body Shop maintains a high quality website with an easily navigable product catalog. The products are divided into distinct categories including Body, Bath, Skin Care, Makeup, Hair, Fragrance and more. It's also possible to search the product inventory according to brand, and all of the individual product categories can be further sorted by price, popularity and an alphabetical listing. This makes it easy to find the exact products you're seeking for your specific skin and beauty concern.
The Body Shop is committed to offering products comprised of responsibly- and sustainably-sourced ingredients whenever possible. The company works with and supports over 25,000 farmers across the world who supply 20 different naturally-derived ingredients. The Body Shop only sources ingredients from farmers that receive a reasonable living wage and satisfactory working conditions. The company also maintains an extensive Ingredients FAQ thoroughly describing its approach to fair trade ingredient sourcing.
The Body Shop website contains an interactive world map indicating their various ingredient sources, including aloe from Guatemala, organically grown cotton from Mauritius, organic babassu oil from Brazil and camomile oil from England. By clicking on each country/ingredient, you'll learn more about how the ingredient is grown and harvested, as well as how the ingredient is beneficial. You can also learn which products include the ingredient by clicking the "What Products is This In?" link found at the bottom of each description. The page for aloe vera, for example, explains how Guatemalan farmers use no fertilizers and maintain the aloe plants by hand, and protect their quality and purity by filleting them within 12 hours of harvesting.
Each product page found on the Body Shop website includes an Ingredients tab and a Key Ingredients tab. The Key Ingredients tab lists the product's most important active ingredients, with a brief explanation of how its harvested and why it's included in the product. The Ingredients tab offers a complete listing of all other ingredients. Note that some of the products sold by The Body Shop do include artificial ingredients, such as colorings.
Unfortunately, The Body Shop does not provide clinical study results for any of their skin and beauty products, probably because such studies have yet to be conducted. However, clinical trials have undoubtedly been performed on many of the ingredients used in the products sold by The Body Shop. This is frustrating, given that the rest of The Body Shop's website is extremely deep and comprehensive by comparison. If you wish to learn of any clinical trial results pertaining to the ingredients found in the company's skincare products, you'll need to look beyond the site.
With that said, it's important to note that The Body Shop does conduct extensive research when it comes to selecting the brands they include in their product catalog. The company ensures that all of its partner manufacturers take the utmost care in growing, harvesting and otherwise producing both ingredients and finished products, which is obvious in the effectiveness of The Body Shop's product line.
The Body Shop makes it easy to gauge the effectiveness of all of their individual skin and beauty products by posting user reviews on all of their product pages. By navigating to a product and clicking the Reviews tab, you'll see the product's overall user rating on a scale of 1 to 5, as well as the percentage of reviewers that would ultimately recommend the item to a friend. Each review includes an overall rating in addition to separate ratings for performance, value and quality. The reviews also include the age, gender and location of the reviewer, in addition to a brief written summary of their experience with the product. The reviews even display other products that the reviewer would recommend, as well as links to other products reviewed by the same individual.
Overall, the testimonials posted on The Body Shop website indicate that the company's products are highly effective. At the same time, the product catalog is extremely deep and it's certain that some products are more useful than others for targeting various skin and beauty concerns. Since most products have at least a few reviews, with some garnering 50 or more, it's relatively simple to determine which are most effective. To maximize the effectiveness of the products sold by The Body Shop, it's advisable to read the information available under the Instructions and Tips tabs found on each separate product page.
The Body Shop offers exceptional customer support thanks to a team of knowledgeable and experienced customer care representatives. You can contact the company directly by dialing 1-800-263-9746, or emailing
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. Phone service is available free of charge, with support hours ranging from 9:00am until 9:00pm EST, Monday through Friday. The company strives to answer all email inquiries as quickly as possible.
The Body Shop website includes a Technical Support area designed for those experiencing difficulty with the online store. An extensive FAQ section with categories pertaining to shopping, ordering, shipping, returns, exchanges, gift cards, accounts and the Love Your Body membership program is also available.
The Body Shop maintains over 2,500 physical store locations across the country, making it easy to receive in-person customer support. You can find the store nearest you by using the Store Locator tool found in the site's top navigation menu.
If you're unsatisfied with any product purchased from The Body Shop, you may return it for a full refund minus shipping and handling. Unfortunately, The Body Shop does not state the length of their return policy. In order to receive a refund, you'll need to return the item with its original packing slip or receipt of purchase. If you've lost this invoice, The Body Shop will provide you with a gift card in an amount equal to your original purchase price. Gift cards and product samples are not eligible for return, replacement or exchange.
The Body Shop takes full responsibility for its products and their safe delivery. If you receive the wrong product or a damaged product, The Body Shop will offer a full refund or exchange including the cost of shipping and handling. Be sure to contact the company immediately if you've received a damaged or incorrect shipment.
The Body Shop's pricing is in line with what you'll find from the competition. Since the company maintains retail outlets throughout the country, it applies sales tax to all orders depending on the state in which you live. Discounted items can be found by clicking the Specials tab in the top navigation menu on the homepage. Here, you'll find rotating promotions and sales such as 25% off on orders of $40 or more, and $20 off on orders of $60 or more. Note that these sales change on a regular basis. The Specials section also includes two-for-one offers, such as two hand washes for $12 and two body butters for $25. You can receive additional discount offers and special coupon codes by creating a customer account with The Body Shop and opting in to the company's email newsletter.
One of the best ways to save money at The Body Shop is by joining the Love Your Body Club. This is a membership program that costs $10 per year and comes with the following benefits:
- 10% off all purchases.
- $10 discount off one order during your birthday month, or a free birthday gift at one of The Body Shop's physical stores.
- Special email discounts.
- A $15 discount off of your 4th purchase after becoming a member.
- A $25 discount off of your 8th purchase, along with free membership renewal.
The Body Shop charges a flat fee of $5.95 for standard ground shipping on all orders, with estimated delivery times of one week or less. Shipping upgrades include UPS 2-Day (starting at $12) and UPS Overnight (starting at $20). All orders exceeding $50 qualify for free standard shipping.
Summary
The Body Shop is one of the largest and most recognizable skin and beauty product retailers in the world, with 2,500 retail stores located in the U.S. and beyond. The company delivers the sort of customer service and quality control that you'd expect from such a massive international chain, all while maintaining a charitable organization and a number of social, animal and human rights initiatives spanning the globe. The Body Shop offers fair pricing and an exceptional value, especially considering the vast number of positive testimonials their products have received.
With that said, it's important to note that The Body Shop has a few shortcomings as well - some of the products contain artificial ingredients, and a lack of clinical testing information forces the most discriminating consumers to seek scientific data elsewhere. Regardless, the company offers more detailed product information than many of its competitors, and the flexible return policy allows you to try any of The Body Shop's products with no obligation to buy.
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