PARIS — The Body Shop’s French subsidiary entered into administration Thursday, in what’s the most recent in a run of bad news for the ailing beauty retailer. 

The Body Shop’s administration process is the results of a toxic combination of overexpansion and underinvestment by past owners, and fierce competition in the wonder market. 

It’s also a part of a wider restructuring on the a part of Aurelius, the private equity concern that acquired The Body Shop from Brazil-based Natura & Co. in mid-November 2023. The deal valued the retailer at 207 million kilos.

The Body Shop had been a trailblazing sustainable beauty brand with a purpose after it began within the ’70s, and its unraveling has had far-reaching effects.

In France, The Body Shop filed for bankruptcy with the Paris business court two weeks ago. The retail chain, with about 260 employees in France, now has a six-month commentary period granted by the court, until fall 2024, to place in place its recovery plan for the 66 stores in France.

That scenario mirrors the challenges faced by The Body Shop in other parts of the world. Over in North America, on March 1, the retailer said it had just ceased operations within the U.S. Its Canadian subsidiary, with 105 stores across Canada, had began restructuring proceedings. All of those doors remain open for trading, but online sales were stopping and the liquidation of 33 stores had begun.

On Feb. 29, The Body Shop said it was closing 75 stores and shedding greater than 480 employees within the U.K. Nine days prior, it said seven stores can be shuttered, leaving 116 locations altogether operational across the country.

Aurelius placed The Body Shop into administration within the U.K. on Feb. 13. On the time, the administrators said The Body Shop would proceed to trade as they appear for a buyer of all or parts of the business. The retailer then had about 200 stores and a pair of,568 employees country-wide.

The appointment of administrators at The Body Shop got here at a difficult time for brands and retailers alike within the U.K., that are coping with a decline in consumer confidence, high inflation and soaring rates of interest. 

The failure of the U.K. business is of particular significance. The Body Shop was founded by Anita Roddick in 1976 and set a template for sustainable beauty brands with “purpose.” Roddick, along with her opposition to animal testing and concentrate on sustainability in manufacturing and the availability chain, was certainly one of the earliest U.K. entrepreneurs to prove that ethics and commerce could work in tandem. 

More restructuring has taken place for The Body Shop. Earlier in February, it signed an agreement with an international family office to sell most of its business in mainland Europe and parts of Asia. The a part of the activity affected equaled to about 14 percent of The Body Shop’s business worldwide. 

Prior to the closures and spin-offs, the B Corp-certified company operated around 2,800 retail locations in greater than 70 countries.

In third-quarter 2023, The Body Shop’s sales reached 829 million Brazilian reals, or $164.7 million.