Looks good, Tastes good

WESTERN MANUFACTURERS HAVE REDISCOVERED THE COSMETIC VIRTUES OF COCOA MORE than 3,000 years after the Maya people, tapping into the trend for "tasty" beauty treatments.

"Chocolate in skin treatments follows on from a phenomenon that we called tasty treatments," said Gabriel Jacquet, of the company Zelda Gavizon which has registered several biochemical patents for its "Chocolatherapie" treatments.

"There was a kind of effervescence at the beginning of the millennium which came from London and which consisted of mixing all sorts of fresh fruits and applying them to the face."

Often such skin care smells so good, you want to eat it.

Even if it is now rare to find a beautician who melts a real bar of chocolate to give her customer’s complexion a moisturizing glow, a Parisian institute plans to publicly show off its benefits.

The French capital hosted its annual Salon du Chocolat for five days last month, gathering nearly 130 French and foreign chocolate specialists, and stocking up with about six tons of chocolate, not least for the catwalk shows of dresses made out of chocolate.

However, using edible chocolate in beauty products is not advisable, warned Jacquet, who said it contained "industrial sugars which are notorious anti-healers" and soya lecithin which is harmful.

Most manufacturers tend to use cocoa butter, which has moisturizing and nourishing properties, but is easy and cheap to obtain, and also sometimes extracts of cocoa beans.

But, said Jacquet, "cocoa has much more to give," adding that the cocoa pod contained "800 complex molecules," including 30 which are good for the skin.

The shell, and not the butter, contains polyphenols, or antioxidants which help delay the effects of ageing on skin, and fat-burning cocoa tannin, while molecules on the surface of the bean also have a psychologically stimulating effect.

Under its "Chocolatherapie" brand, Zelda Gavizon has developed a series of beauty products and considers cocoa to be a true cosmetic asset and not just a gimmick, Jacquet said.

Salomon Melki, co-founder of the "Sensation Chocolat Paris" brand a year ago, acknowledged that they set out to chemically reproduce the color and smell of chocolate in five flavors.

But, he said, the products offered more than just an enticing smell and look. Cocoa butter is added to each product along with other ingredients.

He said that there was a "real desire" to have tasty and fun products, which, at the same time, "remain true cosmetics."

Meanwhile, Vog Coiffure Beaute Paris has just launched "100 percent chocolat" products in its salons, including a hair treatment made of 80 percent cocoa powder mixed with a creamy dessert.

"There is a placebo effect with a reminder of childhood" which is accentuated by the simultaneous serving of a cup of hot chocolate, said Christophe-Nicolas Biot, artistic director of Vog group’s brands.

But hair is also left shiny and very supple, he said.

The Salon du Chocolat, which has already spread its wings to take place in New York and Japan, is now also due in Moscow for the first time in December and is also expected to make its debut in Dubai in March next year as well as return for a second time to China in 2008. – AFP