Review: New Lip Smacker Juicy Blooms Lip Gloss (cute alert! cute alert!)

Continuing Lip Day here on Nouveau Cheap, I'd like to talk about these new Lip Smacker products I've seen recently at my local Rite Aid.

I'm a sucker for anything by Lip Smackers (thanks, inner child!), so when I saw this new Juicy Blooms display, I knew I had to buy something (thankfully I had that Rite Aid gift certificate burning a hole in my wallet). The Juicy Blooms Collection contains Juicy Blooms Lip Glosses, which are sheer and have "soft sparkle" and Star Glazes, which are more opaque, colored glosses (click here for more info).

Forgive my blurry Blackberry pics but here are some close-ups of the Star Glazes and Juicy Bloom glosses:

Star Glazes

Juicy Blooms

The retail price for these glosses is $3.50 at Rite Aid, which seems about the same as other Lip Smackers glosses. But what really got me, what REALLY got me, was the packaging. As soon as I saw the bright color of the Cherry Blossom Juicy Bloom, in addition to the unbelievably adorable packaging, it went directly into my shopping basket.

Not impressed yet? Well just wait, because I took some close-ups of the tube, with flash and without flash:

Look at the little garden of flowers at the bottom of the tube! The flowers wrap all the way around the bottom of the tube and no two flowers are alike. And did you see the cute little heart above the "i" in Juicy? And the little white birdy at the end of Blooms? So much cuteness I might burst!

If that still didn't pull at your cuteness strings, what about the handle on this wand?

If that still didn't make you utter "Oh, now THAT'S cute" then I just don't know what else to say. :)

But let's talk about the actual gloss now, shall we?

As you can see, this is a standard wand applicator, and the gloss itself is so sheer it might as well be called clear (but of course I pretty much knew that going into this). I do like that this gloss is paraben-free, and it's surprising smooth and hydrating. It also lasts a lot longer on my gloss-eating lips than most Lip Smacker products.

So what about the "soft sparkle"? I tried and tried to capture it for you but here's the best I could do:

With flash

Without flash

It's definitely a "soft sparkle" as the packaging indicates, and I was surprised that it's a pink sparkle to boot. Again, painfully cute.

This is the Cherry Blossom Juicy Bloom, which is an appropriate name in terms of the color. As for the fragrance and flavor? It reminds me more of cherry-flavored bubble gum (it's a good thing I love cherry-flavored bubble gum, but if you don't, then this is not for you).

Do you need a Juicy Bloom Lip Gloss? Well, if you're under 13 years old, you're probably going to say YES I DO! But for those of us with more mature palettes, I have to say these are quite fun and I would certainly use this on a no-makeup or minimal-makeup day, no questions asked. Plus, I don't know if you're aware of this by now, but these are just so darned cute. :)