"WHERE I AM, WITH MY KNICKERS at my knees . . .," begins a typical Anita Roddick anecdote, this one delivered, incongruously, to the editors of a dozen glossy women's magazines. The best of America's beauty press -- including editors from Vogue, Lear's and Mirabella -- have gathered at a swank Manhattan eatery to get a close look at the founder of the Body Shop, Roddick's fast- growing chain of cosmetics stores. She is telling them how she learned to make oud, the molasses-thick perfume worn by Bedouin women for its aphrodisiac properties. "We'll show you how to make it," a group of women in Oman finally agreed after a week of cajoling, "but first you have to show us your pubic hair." And that's how Roddick ended up with her pants at half-mast, surrounded by Bedouin women (who pluck their body hair religiously) "pointing and hooting and screaming with laughter."
Around the editors' table, you can almost hear the jaws drop. At 50, Roddick may be Britain's best-known female entrepreneur --famed for having transformed herself from a penniless hippie to one of the five richest women in England -- but she still takes some getting used to. The darling of London's City in the 1980s (she was named Business Woman of the Year in 1985), a favorite of the royal family (awarded an Order of the British Empire in 1988), a tireless + promoter of worthy causes (from development in poor countries to preservation of rain forests) and the autocratic ruler of an 893-store international- retailing empire (a new Body Shop opens somewhere in the world every 2 1/2 days), Roddick remains, at heart, a provocateur.
Visiting a Body Shop is like walking into the headquarters of a political cabal -- albeit one scented with dewberry perfume. There are slogans and messages scattered among the fruit-scented soaps and peppermint foot lotions. Exhortations to save the whales and fight for human rights shout from store windows, countertops and recycled shopping bags. Even Body Shop trucks are employed as rolling billboards for pithy slogans. Roddick's current favorite, taken from the side of one of her company's lorries: IF YOU THINK YOU'RE TOO SMALL TO HAVE AN IMPACT, TRY GOING TO BED WITH A MOSQUITO.
Having agitated Britons with high-profile campaigns touting condom use, Amnesty International and her (widely unpopular) opposition to the Gulf War, Roddick has now turned her attention to the U.S., where she has 120 stores and plans to open 40 more this year. Last summer Roddick joined with three dozen U.S. firms -- including Stride Rite shoes and Ben & Jerry's ice cream -- to form Businesses for Social Responsibility, a politically correct alternative to the Chamber of Commerce with ambitions to "revolutionize how business in America operates" by promoting such progressive policies as family leave and environmentally sound manufacturing.
Last fall she used her U.S. stores as voter-registration centers, signing up 50,000 new voters and urging customers and passersby to go to the polls. In November she opened a new store in Harlem, all profits from which will be plowed back into the community. Next week she is launching her first assault on U.S. government policy: a three-week "have a heart" campaign exhorting customers to tell members of Congress to spend less money defending Europe and more on children, the elderly, the infirm, the homeless and the unemployed.