Getting massaged, wrapped, manipulated, soaked, scrubbed and almost cooked with sugar and chocolate would have to be a sweet way to lose the kinks, cricks and stresses in one's muscles. And no calories (if you keep your mouth shut)!

By EILEEN SCHULTE
© St. Petersburg Times
published November 22, 2002

CLEARWATER -- In the dim light, Amanda Baca is face down on the heated table while Seema Devnani scrubbed her from head to toe with dark granules.

Baca giggles when Devnani rubbed her feet.

Ahhhhh, this must be what it's like to be a Hershey Bar.

Or a Milky Way.

"Ummmmm," said Baca, eyes closed under a face cloth. "This is so relaxing."

Baca was getting a chocolate sugar body scrub, and she was in heaven.

The smell (like 50 pounds of melting Hershey's Chocolate Kisses or maybe the inside of a Godiva Chocolate store), combined with Devnani's rhythmic motions on her body, was intoxicating.

"I could live here if they'd let me," she said.

One thing is for sure: the Body and Sole Day Spa in Safety Harbor has combined two sweet things many people love: chocolate and massages.

It's a guilt-free, calorie-free way to enjoy chocolate, Donna Savastana, a self-described chocoholic who owns the store with Kara O'Connell, likes to say.

Also, "massage flushes all the toxins out of your body," she said. "Chocolate massage is full of antioxidants and vitamins A and E. It hydrates the skin. It releases serotonin by smell and through the skin. It helps you relax naturally."

The spa offers four services: chocolate massage, chocolate body wrap, the sugar body scrub and chocolate manicure and pedicure.

Savastana and O'Connell got the idea to provide chocolate massage to their customers after watching a Travel Channel segment about a spa in Hershey, Pa., where people soak in tubs of the stuff.

They use a product called French Chocolate because "store-bought chocolate is not skin safe," said Savastana.

"This is derived from chocolate, the pure essence of chocolate formulated with skin-safe ingredients," she said.

She said "everything is edible," but it "doesn't taste that great."

She said if someone needs a fix, "we keep chocolate Kisses on the counter."

In the room next to Baca's, Bryan McGuire, 37, also was on his stomach but he had 10 hot rocks soaked in chocolate oil placed one by one down the length of his spine.

Massage therapist April Farnum rubbed a confection of chocolate oil infused with massage oil into his upper leg.

He seemed relaxed.

"I did an Ironman (competition) two weeks ago in Panama City," he said. "It took 12-and-a-half hours. After beating up your body like that, you get tight. This is very therapeutic. It gets the bad stuff out."

There is one down side, though.

"It's making me hungry," McGuire said, laughing.

-- Eileen Schulte can be reached at (727) 445-4153 or schulte@sptimes.com.

If you go

Now this is sweet: Body and Sole Day Spa offers chocolate heated stone massages ($80), sugar body scrubs ($45), chocolate masks ($10), chocolate peppermint body wraps ($60) and chocolate manicures ($20) and chocolate pedicures ($35). The spa is at 400 Second St. N, downtown Safety Harbor. Gift certificates are available. For information, call (727) 725-3255.

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