When Dame Anita Roddick started selling cocoa butter body lotion, banana hair conditioner and sandalwood shaving cream, she was considered something of an ethical pioneer.

Although beauty products made from plants have been around for centuries – think of rose-scented soaps or lavender-scented talcum powder – Dame Anita’s brand and its green associations appealed to a generation that had its environmental consciousness awakened by the 1985 sinking of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour.