The trees are shedding their colorful multitude of leaves, the weather is getting colder, darkness falls more rapidly and winter swiftly approaches. Winter is the harbinger of holidays, presents and long evenings spent with the family by the fireplace or, lacking that, huddled around a heater wrapped in warm blankets. Beyond all the good things, winter also brings promises of frost-bitten noses and dry, itchy skin. This year, Chocolate ZOOM has the answer for both your dry skin and stocking-stuffer needs - a delightful Candy Cane White Chocolate Scrub from Sweet Beauty Spa (http://www.sweetbeautyspa.com).
The candy cane has been a long-time American favorite confection reminiscent of the winter holidays. A holiday special that is sure to disappear as quickly as first snow, the scrub combines the spirit of the jolly season with one of the world’s best moisturizers, cocoa butter, in an all-natural, organic beauty product. The ingredients are simple and don’t contain anything you wouldn’t be able to easily pronounce (e.g. harsh chemicals) – sugar, various plant oils, cocoa butter, crushed peppermint candies, rosemary extract and vitamin E T-50. With ingredients like that, you could probably eat the stuff (I tried a lick, and it tasted quite sweet), but you would be better off enjoying its benefits in a warm shower on a frosty day. "I wanted all of my ingredients to be completely understandable, common and easily findable. I create my products as if I was creating food - all the ingredients complement one another and most of them are edible," said Lisa Françoise, founder and CEO of Sweet Beauty Spa. The scrub smells delicious, although the peppermint dominates the mix, gently exfoliates dead skin cells and leaves the skin silky smooth. A label on the bottom indicates the date on which it was created, and it is recommended that the scrub be used within six months of opening. At $17 for an 8 oz can, it is a wonderful product to treat yourself to this holiday season.
If peppermint is not your thing, the company’s main trade is in skincare products based on premium organic fair trade chocolate. There’s no doubt that chocolate’s detoxifying, soothing and moisturizing properties are a benefit to skin, but that is not the only reason behind the product line. Long hailed as an aphrodisiac, chocolate "stimulates the same parts of the brain as love does," said Lisa. "Chocolate makes you feel good." As a fellow chocoholic, she certainly knows; she has been making chocolate since 2000, and originally wanted to open a healthy chocolate shop. "Because of my skincare background, I thought what’s good for the inside is good for the outside. I would joke that I would start a skincare line and everyone thought it was a silly idea," she said. A skincare certificate thesis on chocolate’s health properties and a visit to Seattle’s Theo Chocolate eventually brought the idea around, however, and Sweet Beauty Spa officially launched on November 1, 2006.
Among the company’s many delicious offerings are a variety of scrubs, including a Triple Chocolate Sugar Scrub, a Chocolate Coconut Sugar Scrub and a Mocha Sugar Scrub ($17), a Milk Chocolate Bath powder ($20), a Chocolate Hand and Body Wash ($13) and a variety of chocolate lip balms ($5.50). In mid-December, Sweet Beauty Spa will be launching two new products – a Berry Cocktail Scrub containing organic asahi, blueberry and pomegranate oils, a face mask with similar ingredients, and a Chocolate Body Butter infused with aromas derived from real chocolate. "I infuse oils with chocolate, which is about a two week process. What I get is an oil that smells like chocolate without a single artificial smell," said Lisa.
