• Chocolate is used in beauty treatments.chocolate image by Jaume Felipe from Fotolia.com
  
  Chocolate in all forms is a widely loved sweet. It has, however, gotten a bad reputation in the world of beauty. Many people believe that eating chocolate can make their skin oily and thus more prone to acne. Yet many beauty treatments utilize chocolate, which can benefit the skin and make it more beautiful.
  
  

Chocolate Is an Antioxidant

• Chocolate is a powerful antioxidant, which can help slow the skin's natural aging process from the inside out. According to Hershey's.com, Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) is a measure of antioxidant power. Dark chocolate is at the top of the ORAC list with 9080 ORAC units per serving, more than is found in foods like blueberries, grapes and almonds. This means that dark chocolate is one of the most powerful and useful weapons in the fight against aging skin. It can reduce wrinkles and age spots and also improve skin elasticity.
  
  

Chocolate Moisturizes Skin

• Chocolate moisturizes dry skin. This is most likely because it contains cocoa butter, a known skin moisturizer. It can also soften dead skin cells and make them easy to remove during exfoliation. This allows new, young and healthy skin cells to grow in their place. Moisturized skin not only looks better and healthier than dry skin, but it is also more elastic, which means fewer wrinkles. Skin can be moisturized internally by ingesting small amounts of dark chocolate daily, or externally with skin products that contain chocolate as a moisturizing ingredient.
  
  

Chocolate Facial Mask

• You can treat your skin at home with a homemade chocolate facial mask. Spa Index recommends mixing 1/3 cup cocoa powder, 3 tbsp. heavy cream, 2 tsp. cottage cheese, ¼ cup honey and 3 tsp. oatmeal. Apply the mixture to the face for 10 minutes and then rinse it off with warm water. The creamy mask, according to Spa Index, is an excellent moisturizer that leaves skin " baby soft." This mask is recommended for normal skin (neither too dry nor too oily) without major conditions such as severe acne.