‘A scented awakening’: how The Body Shop influenced generations

Readers share their memories of discovering the shop’s products and ethos in the 70s, 80s and 90s

Walking into The Body Shop was like “entering a sweet shop”. It “literally made your mouth water”, says Stasia Smith-Turpin, who would head to the Lancaster store after school with friends when she was 16 in the 90s. She recalls how a wave of fragrance would hit her as she entered the shop, and she would test and smell the soaps, creams and potions while planning how to spend her pocket money.

Smith-Turpin, 48, would spray herself with dewberry perfume – the scent of summer berries – before riding the bus home. One day, to her mother’s horror, she applied too much (“my arms were literally greasy!”) and “apparently she could smell me from the bus stop at the bottom of the hill”, she says.

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