Butter me up
Getting moisturized at The Body Shop
Good morning, exfoliation experts. This is your Stock Market Rundown for November 24th, 2023. Thank you for joining me. Let’s dig in:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: BODY LANGUAGE
Thirty years ago, The Body Shop was the trendiest retailer at the local mall, with a cult following among beauty consumers. 90s teens layered Fuzzy Peach Perfume Oil with Coconut Body Butter, ending up smelling like a scented candle that fell in a fruit salad.
Founded in 1976 in Brighton, England, The Body Shop is a brand that’s been traded more times than Carmelo Anthony. When L’Oreal acquired it from the founder in 2006, some fans boycotted. That’s because, while The Body Shop boasted of being “cruelty free”, L’Oreal did animal testing. (They’ve since stopped applying lipsticks to bunny rabbits.)
As a cog in a conglomerate, The Body Shop lost its socially-conscious sheen, and many fans moved on. In 2017, L’Oreal gave up on it and punted it to Brazilian beauty behemoth Natura. Now, it’s been sold yet again—at a fraction of the previous price—to European-based private equity group Aurelius.
The Body Shop was a pioneer in promoting ethical beauty consumerism, which if you ask me is a bit of a contradiction. Am I really saving the planet while I buy stuff at the mall? To be fair, the chain did champion refillable containers and minimalist packaging, which at least cuts the landfill-clogging rubbish.
Today, despite being a brand you’re more likely to see in your mom’s medicine cabinet than in a trending TikTok, The Body Shop still has more than 2,800 retail locations in 80 countries.
Sometimes savvy marketing can breathe life back into faded brands—witness how Fila and Champion got their groove back. Time will tell whether The Body Shop’s new owners have a plan to get Instagram influencers buffing their toes with Peppermint Foot Scrub.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
It’s a bull market in navy blazers: Ralph Lauren, beloved brand of the WASP equestrian set, beat estimates as customers sprang for their latest cashmere cable-knits. Even if you can’t winter in Aspen, you can still look the part.
Elsewhere in retail, the Gap’s stock surged as quarterly sales results bested Wall Street’s pessimistic expectations. The company also laid off two thousand employees, so don’t be surprised if the chino tables are a mess the next time you stop in.
Guys may just want to grill, but high mortgage rates are blocking some Americans from their three-bed-two-bath dream home in the ‘burbs. The biggest US homebuilder, DR Horton, is being forced to dole out incentives to lure buyers to the white-picket-fence lifestyle.
Consumers aren’t so eager to wake up with the King these days: the parent company of Burger King reported flat traffic, and plans to boost ad spend to try to turn things around. Maybe it’d help if they mopped the floor more often… the last time I was there I slipped on a discarded Croissan’wich.
That’s all she wrote for this week, folks. Have yourselves a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you bright and early Monday morning. Yours in capitalism, The Axe
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Hit me up at theaxe@stockmarketrundown.co