In Japan, ready-to-wear chocolate comes without the calories

TOKYO, Saturday (AFP) -Japanese women who crave chocolate but not its calories are discovering they don't have to put it in their mouths – this Valentine's Day they can slather it on their bodies or wear it instead.

Women in Japan are expected to give chocolate to boyfriends and husbands for Valentine's Day, with the men reciprocating a month later, but this year it seems that some Japanese women are ditching tradition and pampering themselves.

At the upscale Tokyo Prince Hotel, women are being offered an overnight package that includes a 75-minute chocolate massage.

“We are hoping that women have these chocolate massages before they see their boyfriends or husbands so that they can smell nice when they profess their love,” said Nana Ohtsuka, a marketing officer for the hotel.

But she added that the hotel is also targeting the package, which costs up to 50,000 yen (455 dollars), at Japan's growing ranks of single and financially secure women.

“An increasing number of women in their 20s and 30s want to reward themselves, they want to spend money on themselves on Valentine's Day,” she said.

The hotel is promoting cocoa as good for the skin, hoping to soothe fears that a love of chocolate leads to an expanding waistline by using it in less conventional ways.

And though the hotel isn't exactly spelling it out, chocolate's link with romance can be traced back a few thousand years to when the ancient Aztecs associated it with their goddess of fertility.

Chocolate contains a variety of substances, some of which, like caffeine, are addictive and others that have positive health benefits such as reducing coughing.

The presence in chocolate of the feel-good chemicals serotonin and phenethylamine, mild sexual stimulants, have led to the romantic lore that chocolate is an aphrodisiac and so giving and receiving chocolate has become an inextricable part of the modern courtship ritual. At the Prince, press officer Yuri Nakaone says that for women who don't want to forgo chocolate but fear gaining weight from over-indulgence, having a massage with a rich paste made of pure cocoa powder is the perfect alternative. It's good for the skin, she says, and helps relieve stress because of the caffeine and polyphenols present in the cocoa.