British shoppers spent an additional £161m on self-care during lockdown 1

The UK spent an extra £161m on self-care, including in-home beauty treatments and indulgent bathing during the UK’s first lockdown, new findings from the Body Shop have revealed.

The results, gleaned from interviews with 2,000 UK adults, reveal how lifestyles and self-care routines were altered by lockdown and the resulting impact on time and wallets.

On average, people in the UK each gained an extra seven hours and 25 minutes every month to pursue personal “self-care” activities including in home beauty treatments, longer more luxurious baths, fitness and recreational hobbies.

With personal care businesses including beauty, nail and hair salons closed for much of the summer under the UK’s first lockdown, many Brits amped up their spending on luxury bathing products, cosmetic work and self-tanning.

Self-tanning saw the biggest increase in spend on beauty during lockdown, with a monthly average increase of £28m across the UK.

Sales of luxury bathing products also saw a monthly average increase of more than £22m – with the monthly average spend per person growing by £0.33.

Luxury bathing also saw the biggest increase in time spent during lockdown compared to before, with the average person spending 15 more minutes soaking in the tub per month.

Conversely, time spent applying makeup fell dramatically, with 23 minutes less time spent per person per month.

The findings were used to inform a new Body Shop campaign for its range of self-care products including its Spa of the World collection. The retailer has also launched a range of self-care tutorials on its website.