Top 10 Food-Based Beauty Gifts: If You Get Desperate, You Can Eat Your Make-Up

Body scrubs made with coffee and sugar, bath salts scented like cinnamon, facial peels crafted from crushed papayas, makeup palettes packaged like chocolate bars, face powder made from ground rice — foodie hysteria has clearly infiltrated the beauty/cosmetics market. If the idea of rubbing cookie batter all over your body holds appeal, we've got the shower gel for you.

Credit: Ahava

10. Ahava Bath Salts:

In Sweet Cinnamon Silk, Vanilla Dream and Chocolate Wishes. The coolest thing about these cookie-scented bath salts made with Dead Sea salt crystals? The scratch-n-sniff pricetag. A healthy way to get high on bath salts. Just keep them away from the kids.

Credit: S. Bonar

9. Fruit acid facial peels:

By Elemis (Papaya Enzyme peel) and Arcona (Mandarin Brightening peel, Raspberry Resurfacing peel). The Papaya Enzyme peel smells like a papaya-and-pineapple smoothie and uses crushed papaya and pineapple in a milk protein base to dissolve superficial dead skin cells. The Raspberry Resurfacing peel uses raspberry and grape seed extracts, green tea and lycopene (from tomatoes) to achieve similar results. The Mandarin Brightening Peel utilizes blood orange oil, orange peel oil, red mandarin orange oil and grapefruit peel oil to focus on brightening skin and improving uneven pigmentation. You can also give (or receive) a custom-blended fruit acid facial at Arcona's Santa Monica spa.

Credit: Sephora

8. Too Faced Chocolate Soleil Matte Bronzing Powder:

Made with real cocoa powder. What an idea: rub cocoa powder on your face for a fake tan! “The complexion is left with a flawless finish, a gorgeous radiance and a subtly sweet scent” that is “never orangey” Too Faced says. It also comes in a Milk Chocolate shade. Frankly, we'd rather drink our cocoa.

Credit: June Jacobs

7. June Jacobs At-Home Spa Kit:

This holiday-scented kit includes Perfect Pumpkin Peeling Enzyme Masque, Cranberry Body Balm and Peppermint Hand & Foot Therapy. A way to have your Christmas dinner and rub it all over your body, too.

Credit: Sephora

6. Lorac Eye Candy Full Face Collection:

A gold candy-style box contains six faux “chocolate bar” palettes for eyes, cheeks and lips with annoyingly named colors like Ooh La La Vanilla (nude eye shadow palette), Caramel Love Affair (golden eye shadow palette), Blackberry Truffle Seduction (smoky eye shadow palette), Mesmerizing Dark Chocolate (cream eye liner palette) and Indulge in Berry Kisses (cheek and lip tint palette). Hmmm, we wonder what would happen if you rubbed See's on your face?

Credit: bliss

5. Bliss “you butter watch out” body butter trio:

Like compound butter for your skin (except the butter is of the “shea” variety), the set includes lemon + sage, blood orange + white pepper and raspberry sparkling champagne scents (be forewarned: the latter contains mica “sparkles”).

Credit: Zaja Naturals

4. Zaja Naturals Handmade Confections perfume oils and solid perfumes:

In Love Chocolate, Pumpkin Icing and Vanilla Apricot. Sounds vile, right? But these perfumes are made from essential oils and are vegan and paraben- and alcohol-free. The chocolate scent is mixed with vanilla and bitter orange, so you won't smell like a Hershey bar. The pumpkin perfume is described as “earthy sweet” with a “well-balanced blend of clove, nutmeg, allspice and ginger, and just the right amount of cinnamon.” Vanilla Apricot is said to be “a fresh, fruity fragrance consisting of jackfruit, apricot, and tropical papaya with a drydown of sweet, sugary vanilla.” If you are unconvinced, you can get a sample vial for $2.50. The company also makes beer-based soaps.

Credit: S. Bonar

3. Level Naturals sugar scrubs:

Level Naturals makes everything in their all-natural, vegan, gluten-, paraben- and cruelty-free (“we only test on ourselves and our friends”) line by hand at The Brewery artists' colony. They also try to keep GMOs out of their ingredients and support heirloom plants. Virtually everything Level makes is fruit- and/or herb-scented, from their coffee, blood orange and peppermint sugar scrubs to their bath bombs, which come in grapefruit bergamot and lemon ginger sage, among other scents. You could actually eat most of their products. But better to use them in the tub, because they wouldn't taste very good.

Credit: S. Bonar

2. Santa Maria Novella:

A skincare and perfume line for the food-based beauty products aficionado who is also a history buff. The pharmacy opened to the public in 1612. In 1866 the Officina Farmaceutica passed into private hands. But today's procedures follow the founding fathers' traditions (and sometimes the original recipes). Production is limited and meticulously controlled. Only high-quality natural ingredients are used. Some examples: the main ingredient of Hair Honey Cream is organic honey from the company's own beehives. The Almond Paste (for hands) consists of almonds (plus egg yolks, grape seed oil and virgin beeswax). Rice Powder, their facial powder, is a blend of rice starch and talc. The Herb & Mint Water is said to use an original recipe that was already famous in Dante's time. You know, Dante of The Inferno. How cool is that.

Credit: S. Bonar

1. Philosophy:

This company took the food-as-beauty-product concept and went absolutely bonkers with it. Their 3-in-1 shampoo/bubble bath/bath gel line comes in such holiday scents as old-fashioned eggnog, peppermint bark, Christmas cookie, cinnamon buns and hot-buttered rum. Each bottle has a complete recipe for the food version of its flavor printed on the front. They also offer scrubs like the Gingerbread Man and lotions like Sweet Creamy Frosting, all cleverly packaged as The Cookbook or The Recipe Box or The Bake Shoppe. On their website, the company's founder, Cristina Carlino, says, “If you think that you like hot cinnamon buns or hot coca or pear cobbler or pink frosted layer cake to eat, you haven't lived until you've showered with these items. It's addictive.”

But what if you ate them IN the bathtub while using the corresponding flavored bubble bath WHILE watching “Cake Boss”? The mind boggles.

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