Clear for Life

The fantasy has come true.

Now you can get clear and beautiful skin by eating chocolate.

At least if you happen to believe the food manufacturers looking to cash on in the health boom.

The latest spin from food manufacturers is to reposition what used to be junk candy bars into health foods. Mars Snackfoods entered the ‘health’ niche of the chocolate market with Vitalize and Beautiful. Vitalize is supposed to give you energy while Beautiful, well, is supposed to help you get a beautiful skin.

However it looks like the bulk of the R&D money has been spent on marketing. The label shows the common chocolate ingredients with a sprinkling of vitamins and other nutrients. This is the ingredient list for Beautiful.

Ingredients: Milk Chocolate (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Chocolate, Skim Milk, Milkfat, Lactose, Chocolate Processed With Alkali, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Soy Lecithin), Vitamins and Minerals (Tricalcium Phosphate, Ascorbic Acid, Vitamin E Acetate, Niacinamide, Zinc Oxide, Biotin). Allergy Information: May Contain Peanuts and Tree Nuts

Healthy? I leave it up to you to decide.

One company that pushes this even further is Ecco Bella. They have a product line called health by chocolate of all the things. They actually market their chocolate bars as being the most delicious way to give yourself soft, smooth, luxurious looking skin (http://www.healthbychocolate.com/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=78).

Delicious Swiss chocolate that’s good for you!

Formulated with Dr. Philip Cohen, Professor of Dermatology, with more antioxidants than most fruit or vegetables, it’s also choc-full of minerals! But all you’ll taste is rich Swiss chocolate.

http://www.healthbychocolate.com/

With Dove this is probably just marketing hype to get you to buy more of their unhealthy products. Ecco Bella probably honestly tries to make something that’s good for you. Unfortunately the sad fact remains that you can’t turn an unhealthy food (chocolate) into a health food just by adding individual nutrients into it. Health in foods comes from synergistic effect of many nutrients - not from a big pile of individual nutrients working together.

So I wouldn’t take Ecco Bella’s marketing phrase ‘Now you can be bad to look and feel good!‘ to the bank. You’ll probably find that the old acne by chocolate phrase still has more truth to it.

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin

I recently changed my chemical-laden shaving cream to coconut oil and that has made a huge difference on my skin.

The skin on my neck is very sensitive and used to get flaming red after shaving. I thought that it was part and parcel of shaving and that there’s not much I could do about it. Since I started shaving with coconut oil my skin takes it much better. Sure it gets a bit red, but not nearly as much as when I used chemical-based shaving creams. So probably the chemicals had a lot to do with it.

And for some reason I’m going through an extended detox at the moment. Due to that I’ve gotten some nasty pimples on my neck. They’ve already settled down quite a bit, but are still there. I used to hate shaving because it turned those pimples really red and angry looking. Of course they settled down quickly but it was obvious shaving irritated them a lot. Even that has settled down after switching to coconut oil.

Coconut oil also makes the blades so much easier to clear. While using shaving cream the space between razor blades used to get full of cream and whatever was coming off my skin. I had to open the tap full before it flushed the blades clean. With coconut oil I just have to run a little water through the blades and they come clean nicely and easily.

The only downside is that it’s a bit messy. I have to wipe the oil into a towel to get it out of my hands. But I’m willing to wash my towels a bit more often to keep shaving with coconut oil.

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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin