Guest Post: Solaroma Choco Cafe Line

Being a total foodie, and a chocoholic junkie (pretty much my entire suitcase coming home from Berlin was filled with the good stuff), I wanted to share what sounds like a truly scrumptious product with you guys.  I mean, really, who doesn't want to be bathed in chocolate-y goodness?  I know I do...

Product Review: Solaroma Choco Café Line

by Renee on November 15, 2010

I don’t know anybody on the face of this earth who doesn’t like chocolate. It’s just not possible! Just the sweet aroma of chocolate is enough to pick me up and put a smile on my face, and I know this is true for you too. Other than its irresistibly delicious taste, the benefits of chocolate have been known for centuries. Here are just some of the health benefits of chocolate:

• The smell of chocolate increases theta brainwaves, resulting in relaxation.
• Chocolate contains phenyl ethylamine, a mild mood elevator.
• Chocolate increases antioxidant levels in the blood.
• The carbohydrates in chocolate raise serotonin levels in the brain, resulting in a sense of well-being.
• Chocolate enhances the production of endorphins, which results in a feeling of pleasure.
  

These health benefits are exactly what Lorrie Hargis, creator of Solaroma Organic & Natural Cosmetics based in France, considered when creating her newest line of organic products “My Choco Café” ­– a collection of face and body products infused with organic chocolate, coffee, essential oils and other active ingredients. I recently had the pleasure of sitting with Lorrie to discuss her new My Choco Café line, and test out some samples. Let me tell you now, the products really are as enticing as they sound!

Four years ago, Lorrie came up with the idea to develop a line of chocolate products that not only worked on the body, but was also fun to use! With years of experience in natural health, Lorrie was able to take her knowledge of natural ingredients, extracts, and essential oils, and put it into cosmetics to create the delectable My Choco Café line. Lorrie created the product line in the South of France, where she lives with her family and grows organic plants such as Rosemary, Thyme, Sage, Lavender, and Rose – some of which are used in Solaroma products. For 30 years, Solaroma has provided organic health-conscious products throughout Europe, and now Lorrie is ready to bring these wonderful products to the USA! (See bottom of review for more information about where to find Solaroma products).

The line consists of three product elements: Body Delices – Body-care products; Visage Delices – Face-care products; and Aroma Delices – a unisex perfume. These products are made with organic chocolate extracts, rather than just artificial chocolate scent, so that your body gets the real benefits of chocolate rather than just the smell of it.

I was fortunate enough to be able to take home samples of the My Choco Café Body Delices and Visage Delices products to try out! Here are my favorites:
 
My Choco Café Body Scrub: As instructed by Lorrie (who knows best!), I started out with the Body Scrub – a delicious blend of Vitamin E and sunflower oil to hydrate the skin, organic fair-trade coffee grains from Mexico to give an exfoliating scrub, organic rich dark chocolate from the Dominican Republic, and essential oils of mint, lemongrass, vetiver, rosemary, cypress, and geranium to help increase circulation. The dark brown color of the scrub, along with the coffee grains, makes the Body Scrub look almost like a scrumptious frappuchino! But don’t worry, you won’t be temped to eat it as the smell is not overwhelming chocolately – the lemongrass and rosemary emanate the strongest, giving it an exhilarating and awakening scent. Now to the actual application – the scrub felt very invigorating on my skin. The fine coffee grains create a really wonderful exfoliating scrub that feels like its really working to remove dead skin, and the mint essential oil leaves an energizing and cooling sensation on the skin.
The Exfoliant Visage for the face contains the same active ingredients as the Body Scrub, but with less coffee grains so that it doesn’t damage the sensitive skin on your face by being too rough.

My Choco Café Peeling: This face-peel mask is an enticing chocolate-mousse color and consistency that is simply irresistible! As directed by Lorrie, I applied a thin layer on my face and let it sit for 5 minutes. As I sat there relaxing, I noticed the strong smell of lemongrass and the cooling sensation created by the green tea extract, both of which helped to awaken my senses. The My Choco Café Peeling is made up of organic dark chocolate, essential oils, green tea extract, pineapple and sugarcane extracts (to eat away dead skin), and blueberry extract to add powerful antioxidants. After letting it sit for 5 minutes, the peel was very easy to rinse off – I didn’t need to actually peel it off which I liked because it didn’t feel as if I was pulling off too much of my skin cells and natural oils. My face was left feeling smooth, moisturized, and refreshed, not to mention smelling delicious!


Being a newcomer to the organic movement, it is really comforting to know that I can trust Solaroma products for being truly organic. All Solaroma products are EcoCert  Certified – meaning they are thoroughly controlled and monitored by EcoCert (a control and certification organization, whose activities are governed accordingly by public authorities and legislation) for quality and integrity. On the label of each product, it tells you exactly what percentage of the product is natural, and what percentage is organic – all of which is rigorously tested, and audited by EcoCert. To learn more about EcoCert, click here.

There is so much that goes into working with organic ingredients in cosmetic products – quality control, testing, checking, and quarantining – to ensure that the ingredients are truly organic. This is often reflected in the price of the product, which tends to be high, but Solaroma’s My Choco Café line is actually very affordable for the high-quality that it is! Large tubs (100ml) are $39.95 each, and smaller tubs (50ml) are $29.95 each.

So where can you find scrumptious My Choco Café products? Right now they are only just arriving in the U.S. and can only be found in the Urban Oasis Spa in Bakersfield, as well as in select spas in New Jersey and New York, and will soon be available in a spa in Los Angeles! You can also order the My Choco Café line, as well as other Solaroma products, online from www.solaroma.com.

Happy Spa’ing!

By Renee Anzaruth via www.hiddenspas.com