Bathe In Chocolate

Chocolate is romantic. Taking a candlelit bath with your special someone is romantic. So what could be more romantic than spending time with your special someone while bathing in chocolate?

It’s that sort of flawless logic that has Spot Cool Stuff writing a review of the world’s best chocolate spas. We found three spots in particular—one each in Switzerland, the United States and Japan—where you’ll want to go to experience the world’s best chocolate baths.

So, what’s it like to bathe in chocolate? you might be asking.

Contrary to what you might imagine, it isn’t like this . . .

Scene from the 2007 Sziget Festival

. . . and it won’t leave you feeling like this:

Instead, select spas around the world offer two basic types of chocolate spas that are far less sticky and crusty than that:

The first is to bathe in a tub filled with mixture of water and unsweetened cocoa. Sometimes this mixture is whipped with milk; sometimes sweetened chocolate is offered to the bathers to eat (or, as is the case at one spa in Japan, it is poured on their heads).

The second option is to have a thick chocolate smear applied to you, either by a masseuse or in the form of a body wrap. The chocolate can be so enveloping with the second option that you may feel like you are in a bath even without the sensation of splashing around in liquid.

No matter what kind of chocolate bath you end up with, the cocoa is believed to be good for your skin. More importantly for the romantics in our audience, chocolate causes the body to release feel-good hormones similar to those released when you are in love. (Biologically speaking, those who claim chocolate equals love aren’t far off).

I’m sold. Where can I go for such a bath?

Here are Spot Cool Stuff’s three places for bathing in chocolate:

After The Rain Spa

Geneva

Geneva is one of the world’s premiere cities for chocolate. After The Rain is one of Geneva’s best spas. So it isn’t surprising that several chocolate-related treatments are on offer there. Of those, we’re partial to the Je T’aime Moi Non Plus package — it’s designed for two people and includes a 30-minute non-chocolate bath, a 45-minute cocoa bean oil massage and a 30-minute chocolate and whipped cream bath. Afterwards, guests are invited to drink green tea and enjoy chocolate in the more traditional way (eg. eating it). The whole package is CHF350 (around €280).

Really can’t get enough of the sweet stuff? You’ll get no sweeter than the Caramels, Candy and Chocolates package for CHF600 (for two people). It includes a caramelized double exfoliation, a massage with cocoa bean oil, and a chocolate bath on a Chantilly cream cloud followed by a caramel, candy and chocolate chip feast.

LEARN MORE | SWITZERLAND GUIDEBOOKS |

[ ALSO ON SCS: eHarmony vs Chemistry.com: Which is the Better Dating Website? ]

The Chocolate Spa

Hersey, PA USA

The Pennsylvania town named after the famous chocolate company founded there is also home to the world’s only chocolate-centric spa.

The logically-named Chocolate Spa is part of the equally logically named Hotel Hershey. The spa is a maze of 54 treatment rooms (dotted with large jars of Hershey Kisses). Inside those rooms you might find people receiving chocolate hypnotherapy treatments, chocolate sugar scrubs and chocolate bean polishes (ie. an exfoliation using cocoa bean husk). Of prime importance for this article, however, is the spa’s bath of whipped chocolate milk. Enjoy it while basking in the glow of Tootsie Roll-flavored candles and breathing in brownie-batter-scented steam. It’s a slice of chocolaty heaven. At $45 for 15 minutes, it’s also the most inexpensive chocolate bath we know of.

LEARN MORE | BOOK THE HOTEL | GUIDEBOOKS |

Hakone Kowakien Yunessun

Hakone, Japan

Every year between February 14th (aka Valentine’s Day) and March 31st the Hakone Kowakien Yunessun outside of Tokyo hosts a chocolate bath. The romance of the experience is rather diminished by the large presence of grandparents and kids in the large communal pool. (If kids will happily pee while swimming in clear water we shudder to think what they’d do while bathing in warm chocolate). Still, the chocolate bath is well worth the experience, especially if you partake during a time when spa employees pour chocolate sauce all over the bathers. (That happens Monday through Friday at 11:30am, 2pm and 3:30pm; Saturday and Sunday at 11:30am, 2:30pm and 16:20pm).

Not incidentally, Hakone Kowakien Yunessun is one of the most unusual . . . we’re not even sure what to call it. Imagine a mix between a spa, a water park and a party gone weird. Whatever that is, Hakone Kowakien Yunessun is the world’s most unusual. The Mori No Yu portion of the property is an adult-only nudist colony. The other half, the Yuneesun Resort, is for kids and contains all sorts of unusual baths. In addition to the chocolate bath, guests can soak in green tea, sake, coffee and wine!

We’ll be reviewing Hakone Kowakien Yunessun in a future post. Sign up for our RSS or email service to get that, and all Spot Cool Stuff travel articles, delivered to you as they are published.

LEARN MORE | JAPAN GUIDEBOOKS |

Also on Spot Cool Stuff:

Match.com vs eHarmony: The Best Dating Websites
Bathe With Monkeys in Japan
Boating in a Hut Tub?
The World’s Best Candy Stores
The World’s Largest Swimming Pool
The Cool, High-Design (and Portable!) Wood-Burning Spa
Travel to the Chocolate Hills ← it isn’t what it sounds like
Chocomize: The Cool Design-Your-Own-Chocolate Website

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