From Apply Now,
Your Guide to Animal Rights.
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The Body Shop has built a strong reputation as a socially and environmentally responsible corporation, with a charitable foundation arm and marketing programs aimed at issues such as animal testing, human rights, sustainable agriculture, wildlife protection, renewable energy, recycled packaging, domestic violence and poverty.

The first store opened in England in 1976, and the company expanded franchises into the U.S. in 1989. There are now more than 2,100 stores in 55 countries. The 30-year-old company has been owned by cosmetics giant L'Oréal since 2006, although The Body Shop management says it operates independently and retains its “unique identify and values.”

The company claims that all of its products are animal cruelty-free. According to The Body Shop website: “The Body Shop has never tested or commissioned testing of our ingredients or products on animals. We also operate a fixed cut-off date placing restrictions on our suppliers' use of animal tests by refusing to buy any ingredient that has been tested on animals for cosmetic purposes after the 31st December 1990.”

Kudos for Policy Against Animal Testing

Indeed, animal rights and animal welfare groups around the world have applauded the company for its stance against animal testing on cosmetics. The Body Shop’s “Against Animal Testing” campaign is considered to have been instrumental in leading to a ban on animal testing for cosmetics in the United Kingdom. The company has numerous animal-positive accomplishments to its name, including:

• In 2006, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in Europe awarded The Body Shop a “Proggy” (progress) award for its position against animal testing.
  
  
• In 2005, the Royal Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in the U.K. recognized The Body Shop for its policies against animal testing.
  
  
• In 2004, The Body Shop Foundation awarded £20 000 to John Hopkins University to help develop animal testing alternatives at its Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing.
  
  
• In 1998, the U.K. government banned tests on cosmetic products and ingredients. There also were finished product test bans in the Netherlands and Germany. These bans followed a 1996 effort by The Body Shop in which the company presented the European Union with the largest petition against animal testing in history, signed by more than 4 million people.
  
  
• In 1997, The Body Shop was the first international cosmetics company to sign on to the Humane Cosmetics Standard.

Criticism for Using Animal-Derived Ingredients

Despite its generally positive reputation, company also has been criticized for its less-than-strict policy against using animal-derived ingredients in manufacturing its products. On the McSpotlight website, which offers alternative viewpoints about multinational corporations including McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Exxon and others, The Body Shop is targeted for misleading the public about its practices that affect animals.

According to the McSpotlight website: “Although The Body Shop maintains that they are against animal testing, they do not always make clear that many of the ingredients in their products have been tested on animals by other companies, causing much pain and suffering to those animals. They accept ingredients tested on animals before 1991, or those tested since then (if they were animal-tested for some purpose other than for cosmetics). There continue to be concerns about the enforcement of their policy. Also, some Body Shop items contain animal products such as gelatine (crushed bone).”

The Body Shop maintains that it only uses animal-derived ingredients that are “suitable for vegetarians, but not for vegans.” According to its policy on animal-derived ingredients posted on its website, the company does use ingredients “where the harvesting of materials does not cause harm to any animal.” The company insists that it will not use ingredients that cause the death of an animal or are byproducts of animals killed for other reasons.

Ingredients that the company allows include honey, sometimes identified as Mel (bee food replaced by less nutritious sugar syrup when harvested from bees); beeswax, sometimes identified as Cera Alba (beehive “glue”); shellac (from insects that drain sap from tree bark and secrete resin); and lanolin (from the fat in sheep’s wool).

Why Lanolin is Not Cruelty-Free

Contrary to The Body Shop’s assertion, lanolin is not a cruelty-free ingredient. To say that wool production does not cause cruelty to animals is an understatement.

In one of the most egregious practices, sheep are selectively bred for wrinkled skin that yields more wool, and this attracts flies to lay eggs in the moist wrinkles. Sheep have been known to be eaten alive by maggots. To prevent this, ranchers in Australia, one of the largest wool-producing countries, perform “mulesing" - the practice of cutting large pieces of flesh off of the backs of sheeps’ legs and around their tails, all without anesthesia.

When sheep age and their wool production declines, they are sold for slaughter. The wool industry also participates in widespread wildlife “damage control,” killing animals such as kangaroos and coyotes, which it believes negatively affects wool production.

The Body Shop Could Do Better

Knowing this makes The Body Shop seem like a less-than-ideal company for those concerned about animal rights. They could find alternatives for the animal-derived ingredients. There is synthetic lanolin available, and there are honey alternatives, such as agave nectar made from cacti.

At least the company is up front about the fact that it does use a limited number of animal-derived ingredients, and it labels all of its ingredients so consumers can make informed choices. But buyer beware: The company uses Latin names for some of the ingredients, which they claim is due to European labeling regulations.

As cosmetics companies go, The Body Shop is not perfect, but it is better than most. From an animal rights perspective, there are other animal-friendly cosmetics companies that may fit the philosophy much better, including Beauty With Compassion and Beauty Without Cruelty.