It was a striking image of protest.

Shoppers in Southampton city centre looked on stunned as a woman stood in a blue oil drum wrapped in a Canadian flag.

And as the crowd gathered outside the Lush Cosmetic store on East Bargate, staff poured a thick, black, tar-like substance over the woman’s head.

Shop supervisor Rosi Zaragoza, 33, took part in the stunt to help launch the store’s latest campaign.

The sticky tar-like substance was actually molasses which is a by-product of turning sugar beet into sugar.

It represented the oil extracted in Canada which the soap firm claims is of great cost to forests, the environment and atmosphere.