ETHICAL cosmetics retailer Body Shop International has blamed the weather, transport difficulties and poor sales of some new lines for a disappointing Christmas and warned it would see a ten to 15 per cent decline in profits this year.

While worldwide it saw like-for-like sales, which exclude income from new stores, ahead two per cent on last year, sales in the UK and Republic of Ireland fell by two per cent compared with last year.

The problems experienced over Christmas were compounded by the strength of the pound in Europe, which cost the group around £3m in adverse exchange rates, it added.

"Whilst overall retail sales have shown positive growth, our expectations for our new product programme to drive this performance to a higher level during the second half were not met," chief executive Patrick Gournay said.

The Christmas period accounts for more than 70 per cent of the group's annual profit and, at the half-year stage in October, Body Shop had said it was looking forward to significantly improved profits on the back of a good festive season.

Like-for-like sales in the US in the nine weeks to December 24, were up four per cent, the Middle East and Europe was ahead five per cent and Asia Pacific up one per cent.

Mr Gournay admitted the Christmas period had been a "big disappointment", putting most of the blame on an over-ambitious expansion of new products.

He said: "We were probably too radical in eliminating too many of our heritage products to give way to our new products. We probably went too far."

In the rush to introduce new products, the group had placed a priority on speed and efficiency which had inevitably meant a cost in margin and inventory price, he added.

While he said he "did not want to make too much" of the impact of the weather or the transport disruption in the run-up to Christmas, "it was a factor".

He insisted the US was still performing well, despite a softening in retail sales in the run-up to Christmas.