Editors' Top Reads: News from Rodial, The Body Shop and more...

Here are some of this week’s news and features highlights handpicked by TheIndustry.beauty team.

The Interview: How Founder Katy Cottam is championing women’s health with her microbiome-balancing body brand Luna

Head, vulva, knees and toes… An unexpected remix of the classic children's song, but an important message Luna Daily champions nonetheless with its range of microbiome-balancing body care for all skin - even the most intimate.

Founded by beauty industry veteran Katy Cottam, Luna Daily was created to give women a choice and combine body care with the outdated ‘feminine hygiene’ category. Cottam quit her job as Global Head of Brand at Charlotte Tilbury to set up Luna Daily after conducting some pioneering research. Not only is this interview inspiring, but it's also deeply educational about women's bodies as well as the body care industry.

Cottam said: "The ‘feminine hygiene’ category has marketed to people that you need specific products for your vulva and it's a lie, you don't need specific products for your vulva! Your vulva is just skin – all skin has a pH of about four and a half to five and a half and your vulva is the external part of your female anatomy."

Chloé Burney, Senior News & Features Writer.

Next and Marks & Spencer eye The Body Shop takeover

It will come as no surprise that both Next and M&S have cast their eye over The Body Shop. They are both highly acquisitive (Next in particular) so any interesting opportunity that comes up on the high street is bound to pique their interest. It is a surprise, perhaps, that the other highly acquisitive high street giant, Frasers, hasn't been linked to a deal, but there is time yet.

Word has it Marks & Spencer took a look and decided against a bid but we've not been able to stand this up. Either Next or M&S would be a good safe haven for The Body Shop, but if I had to place a bet, I would put Next as the most likely bidder. Both these groups are gold standard retailers who know how to run stores and e-commerce and who take care of the brands under their umbrellas, and it would be lovely to think of The Body Shop back in British hands being nurtured by a parent company that saw its potential. Because I do still think it has potential.

Lauretta Roberts, Co-founder, CEO and Editor in Chief.

The Interview: Maria Hatzistefanis, Founder of Rodial and Nip+Fab, on finding your niche and making actives accessible...

I think we can all agree that the best thing about a high-profile interview is finding out the seemingly most insignificant details about someone so high-powered. I loved this interview with Rodial and Nip + Fab Founder Maria Hatzistefanis because yes, it was interesting to discover that she owns both beauty giants outright, but it was even better to learn that her first grad job was as a beauty writer for Seventeen magazine, the teen glossy we all pored over in our formative years.

The interview explores Hatzistefanis’ decision to launch a teen skincare range that involves actives, something traditionally reserved for more mature skin, and why she is glad she launched her brands when she did, noting that the beauty market is so much more saturated (don’t we know it) than it was when she founded Rodial in 1999, remarking “you need to have a thick skin”—which I’d say is particularly true in a market that deals in retinol.

Katie Ross, Contributing Writer.

BBC documentary exposes ‘Perfume’s Dark Secret’

I don't know about "Top Read" but this was certainly a very uncomfortable read. I've spent most of my career writing about the fashion industry and, quite rightly, that has been the subject of many exposés on working practices across its supply chain,

Now the beauty industry, or specifically the fragrance industry, is under the spotlight for the use of child labour at suppliers of jasmine to some of the industry's biggest names. In a BBC documentary, children as young as five were seen picking flowers that were sent to factories that supply the likes of L'Oréal and Estée Lauder.

While these groups don't employ these workers directly, they need to take responsibility for what happens in their supply chains and I was pleased to see their responses to the exposé, but was obviously very depressed to see that this sort of practice was happening in the first place.

Lauretta Roberts, Co-founder, CEO and Editor in Chief.