Marissa Carter celebrates Cocoa Brown UK launch with afternoon tea at the Millennium Mayfair Hotel

Cocoa Brown is the one-hour tan that has taken Ireland by storm and is already causing quite a stir throughout the UK. On 31^st July we were invited to the Millennium Mayfair Hotel to have a chat with Marissa Carter, the woman behind Cocoa Brown, over a cup of tea or two and some beautiful treats.

Marissa is already a household name in Ireland and is widely regarded as one of the top beauty experts in the country, with a regular ‘Ask the Expert’ beauty spot on an Irish TV station.  She’s also won awards for her entrepreneurial successes and her passion for beauty, and producing fantastic products is evident in her Cocoa Brown range.

Marissa’s innovative new one-hour tan sells three bottles a minute in Ireland and the fever is already beginning to hit the UK.  Last week, the Mail Online ran a story about Cocoa Brown and within two hours, feelunique.com had sold around 14 weeks’ worth of their Cocoa Brown stock. Quite frankly, it’s not difficult to see why the tan is so popular.  Several prominent beauty bloggers have already published ‘before’ and ‘after’ images highlighting the tan’s streak free finish and brown – not orange – result.  As it’s a mousse, the tan glides on really easily and it’s also fast drying with a beautiful floral scent so you can go straight from tanning to partying!

Although the selling point of this tan is its one hour application time, the way that the product works means that if you’re after a darker tan, you can leave it on for up to three hours in order to develop a darker colour.  And for those that are worried about getting patchy elbows or knees, Marissa has also developed Tough Stuff, a body scrub that’s designed to prepare rough areas of the body for tanning and remove any stubborn remainders of previous colour.

Thanks to the recent media attention and the fact that the British summer seems to be well and truly coming to an end, it’s more than likely that Marissa’s Cocoa Brown products will sell out in no time at all, so our advice is definitely to get stocked up sooner rather than later!

Ellie Owen

Cocoa Brown One Hour Tan (RRP: £7.99) and Cocoa Brown Tough Stuff Body Scrub (RRP: £2.99) are available in selected Primark stores nationwide (London Oxford Street x2, Lakeside Essex, Bristol, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Manchester) and can also be ordered online at feelunique.com.  To find out more about Marissa and her Cocoa Brown range visit here.