The Service: chocolate spa
The Hype: slimmer figure: smooth skin: stress relief
The Lab Rat: a thirty-something female chocolate lover with irregular eating habits
The Results: thighs slimmed by 1.1 cm; feeling of relaxation: and - though connection can't be proven - a sudden desire to go shopping.
When I recently saw an advertisement for a particular beauty spa in Aoyama, it was not really a desire to be beautiful that made me pause.
It was the photo of a young, smiling model, her body covered with a light-brown paste. That alone was arresting enough, but next to her was a bowl of chocolate bars -- and this is what stopped me in my tracks: those bars of lovely, brown, milk chocolate.