Opinion
Constantine: L'Oréal was the arch-enemy of cruelty-free cosmetics
“L'Oreal had always been the arch enemy because of testing on animals. They represented those who wished to test, body shop represented those that didn't wish to test.”
Assertion Supported
Mark Constantine: Anita Roddick copied The Body Shop from a US store
“It was a totally different company that inspired Anita Roddick to copy it and do it in Brighton.”
Assertion Supported
The Body Shop went public without owning its own product formulas
“They went public. They were now a listed company, but they didn't own the product they were selling. I owned it.”
Insight
Constantine: Awareness of mortality and finite time drives human achievement
“That's, if we didn't have that, we wouldn't be driven. We wouldn't do the things we do. You know, you have to have a clear understanding. Of a finite period of time. You have to have it.”
Opinion
Constantine: Early on, Anita Roddick preferred plastic packaging over glass
“She hated the glass jars. She wanted plastic jars because She wasn't so struck on the environment at that time.”
Assertion Supported
Gordon Roddick called taking The Body Shop public his biggest mistake
“You know, they'd gone public, and Gordon Roddick says still today that that was the biggest mistake he made, because he was no longer in control of it, and things that he thought were important wasn't what the-”
Disclosure
Lush caps founder share valuation at 5x average three-year profit
“So we came up with this scheme where we valued our shares at five times the average of the last three years profit, so that we capped it a little bit, But we only kept the greed and we still, that still enabled us to, if we want to build the business, we can b…”
Insight
Mark Constantine: Personal Issues Shape Character and All Founders Have Them
“The issues create the character. I really believe that very strongly. All of the founders have all got issues.”
Assertion Supported
Constantine: Co-founder Mo Constantine invented the first bath bomb in a shed
“So then my wife went out into the shed and came back with the first bath bomb. But it was just a small disk, and we called them aqua sizzlers.”
Insight
Mark Constantine: Small grants to grassroots activists go much further
“Small sums of money in hands of dynamic people who really care goes a long way. So when we give money, when we give, you know, a thousand or 2000 or 5000 to a group that wants to achieve something, you know, maybe they want to stop fracking, or maybe they want…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Constantine: Lush mail order is more profitable than physical retail
“That area of our business is more profitable than the retail. So people moving on to the mail order business is quite a help because we then generate more profit.”
Insight
Constantine: Businesses must plan in six-week blocks during crisis
“One of the things we've tried to do is to break things up into six week periods. Because you can't really anticipate what the virus is going to do beyond a six week period. And so, and then trying to work out within that six week period, what do we think is go…”
Insight
Constantine: Surviving from zero creates intense personal drive and self-reliance
“I think when you have to survive from zero, obviously there's more drive, isn't there? I mean I look at photos of myself in my early twenties, and I see this awfully driven person. I mean, Just driven. Absolutely driven. I think, I suppose, you know, if you, i…”
Assertion Supported
Mark Constantine was The Body Shop's biggest early supplier
“I was their biggest supplier.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Constantine: Scaled cosmetics business to £500k turnover from home garage
“I think I'd got my business up to a half a million turnover by then. Out of my garage and out of the back of the house.”
Opinion
Constantine: Lush's workplace standards regarding women came from Liz Bennett
“You know, when you look at Lush and people admire Lush for its values, especially the way women are treated and things like that, that's all Liz Bennett, Liz, that's, she married and her name became Bennett, Liz Weir, that's her.”
Assertion Supported
Constantine: Cosmetics To Go Held a Patent for Shampoo Bars
“We had a patent for shampoo bars.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Constantine: Cosmetics To Go Lost £1 on Every Parcel Shipped
“Every time we send a parcel out, we lose a pound.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Constantine: Bankruptcy Left Him With £43,000 After Selling Home at Loss
“I bought it for 200,000 pounds. I sold it for a 100,000. I paid off all the loan sharks. I was left with 43,000 pounds, and I had three kids and no business.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Constantine: Lush received 1,000 business inquiries monthly early on
“We would get a thousand inquiries a month for people to do business with us.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Packaging accounts for two-thirds of the cost of bottled shower gel
“If you've got a bottle of shower gel, when it went out from the factory, about two-thirds of the money went into the packaging and the labeling, and only a third into the contents.”
Disclosure
Constantine: Lush and Body Shop management bid £450M for Body Shop
“The management could raise about 360 million themselves to buy the body shop off of the strength of the body shop's figures. I could add my business to that and get up to about four 50, something like that.”
Assertion Supported
Mark Constantine: Lush has donated over £50M to charity
“I mean, we give huge sums in charity. I mean, we've given over fifty million pounds.”
Assertion Contradicted
Constantine: Lush digital sales jumped 200% to 300% during COVID-19
“And we had between 203 hundred percent increase in our digital business, in our, you know, mail business.”
