Some women feel guilty for eating chocolate. They need to make excuses for it.
“I’ll just have the tiniest bit and later I’ll hit the gym.”
“Yes, I’ll eat a slice of chocolate cake and then I’ll fast for a week.”
“Screw it, it’s the holidays. I’m allowed to break my diet and eat like a pig during the holidays.”
I’m not one of those women. Chocolate is a (non-guilty) pleasure. And I enjoy it as much as I can.
But, if you really need an excuse (seriously, isn’t its delicious taste enough?), I’ll give you one.
What if I told you there’s a type of chocolate that can make you look younger? It’s called Esthechoc and it’s the first beauty supplement made with chocolate.
What’s In Esthechoc?
CHOCOLATE TO FIGHT PREMATURE AGING
Chocolate gets a bad rep. It’s accused of making you put on weight, make your insulin levels spike and just be an unhealthy food.
But, chocolate ain’t the bad guy here. Its fault is to hang out with guys that lead it astray. Fat, sugar, and dairy (you know, all that naughty stuff we add to chocolate to make it taste better) are to blame for all that.
Get them out of the picture (and your chocolate bars) and you have a very healthy snack. That’s cos cocoa is high in polyphenols, a group of antioxidants that fights free radicals and reduces inflammation.
The catch? Polyphenols are what gives dark chocolate their bitter taste. Especially when you know that you need to eat a bar of chocolate with 90% cocoa solids to get their full benefits. That’s not going to be very tasty…
Luckily, Estechoc has found a way to give you all the antioxidants goodies of chocolate without the bitter aftertaste.
ASTAXANTHIN TO SLOW DOWN AGING
Astaxanthin is the antioxidant that gives salmon and flamingos their pinkish hue. It’s 6000 times more powerful than vitamin C at destroying free radicals and has powerful anti-inflammatory properties to boot.
Here, Estechoc combined it with Cocoa Polyphenolic Epicatechins. Their superpower is to better deliver oxygen to the skin and keep it younger-looking and healthy.
This combination works so well because epicatechins are hydrophilic (water-loving) and astaxanthin is lipophilic (oil-loving). That helps increase the bioavailability of both substances.
Bioavailability isn’t a bad word (although it sounds like it, doesn’t it?). It means they are better absorbed by the body. They aren’t destroyed by the acids in your stomach, like so many supplements out there are.
Related: Is Astaxanthin The Most Powerful Antioxidant Of All?
Need help creating an anti-aging routine that really works? Sign up to the newsletter below to receive the “Anti-Aging Skincare Routine Cheatsheet” (it includes product recommendations, too!).
Can’t You Just East A Bar Of Dark Chocolate, Istead?
No. Blame bioavailability again.
Dark chocolate is full of epicatechins of course, but they aren’t absorbed by the body as well. Basically, you’d need to eat 60-70g of 90% dark chocolate a day to get the same benefits (that’s around 500 calories).
Likewise, if you wanted to get your daily beauty dose of astaxanthin, you’d need to eat 300g of wild Alaskan salmon. Every day. I don’t know about you, but I don’t love salmon that much.
Thanks to Esthechoc, you can get the full benefits by eating a tasty bar of chocolate that provides all the epicatechins and astaxanthin your skin need to look its best.
Taste
Like dark chocolate. Yummy.
Fragrance
It smells like chocolate. Obviously.
Performance & Personal Opinion
Esthechoc tastes like dark chocolate. Even better if you ask me. Yep, it’s on the bitter side, but not that bitter to put you off.
But does it work wonders for your skin in just three weeks, like the brand says? They’re so confident about it they gave me three weeks’ worth of supply to test it out.
I’d love to tell you that at the end of these 3 weeks my skin was miraculously transformed. But that wasn’t exactly true.
If I had the tools to measure the levels of hydration, antioxidants etc in my skin, I’m pretty sure the results would be positive. But I don’t have those. I can only rely on what I see in the mirror.
What I saw was a brighter complexion. My skin looks nice and healthy, but there isn’t a stark difference with how it looked before (what can I say, I know how to take good care of my skin, with or without chocolate).
But, and this is an important but, antioxidants work slowly. Their job is to prevent wrinkles and that’s not exactly something you can see in three weeks, know what I’m saying?
And, of course, you need to eat a bar a day. You can’t use antioxidants once a week and expect them to work any magic. Constancy is key here.
So, yeah, I think that eating your daily dose of cocoa and astaxanthin can only do you good (as long as you don’t overdose).
As I said, I don’t need an excuse to splurge on this stuff, but if you do… Here you have it.
Who Is This For?
Anyone interested in slowing down premature aging.
Who Is This NOT For?
If you’re allergic to milk, soybeans, and nuts, avoid this. It may contain trace amounts.
Packaging
A white box that features 21 individually wrapped pieces of chocolate. It’s practical, if wasteful.
Does Esthechoc Live Up To Its Claims?
| CLAIM | TRUE? |
|---|---|
| A combination of highly potent active substances: Astaxanthin (the most powerful antioxidant known to science) and Cocoa polyphenolic epicatechins (found naturally in chocolate). Unique micellar technology used during production of esthechoc makes these actives bioavailable. | True. |
| Esthechoc science based skin indulgence. | True. |
Price & Availability
£29.00 at Esthechoc
Do You Need It?
If you need an excuse to eat chocolate, get this!
Dupes & Alternative
I couldn’t find any dupe or comparable alternative for this product.
Ingredients
Chocolate 99,94% (cocoa mass, sugar, fat-reduced cocoa powder, cocoa butter, emulsifier – lecithins (from soybeans), natural vanilla flavouring), Astaxanthin from Haematococcus pluvialis algae, stabiliser – tocopherol-rich extract. Cocoa mass minimum 72%.
May contains traces of milk, soybeans and nuts as this product is manufactured in a facility that also handles milk, nut and soy products.
