Hard Candy Glossaholic Lip Gloss: Tipsy

There's probably one word that best describes Hard Candy's Glossaholic Lip Glosses. Large. Like, not just big... Seriously huge. Take a look!

The gloss pictured with my iPhone for size reference

See? I told you! Huge! I stick this in my pocket and feel like I'm carrying a dangerous weapon, or something (and I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way!)  According to the packaging you get nearly eleven whole grams of product (10.8 to be precise). The standard about is about five grams, so that's more than double the size of a normal gloss, and for just five bucks. Neat!

And it's not just the tube that's humongous.

Glossaholic applicator on the left, Kat Von
D's standard sized applicator on the right

The doe foot on these guys approach roughly the size of a football. Seriously, though, it's very big. If you've been keeping up with recent trends in makeup, you'll know that ginormous lip glosses seem to have been making rounds lately. The first ones that I remember seeing were the ones with the MAC Wonder Woman collection. There was one major complaint with those that a lot of people, reviewers and otherwise, seemed to make. Basically, you dipped the applicator in and got a ridiculously huge gob of product out.

I'm mentioning those because, this gloss doesn't have that problem. You'll notice when you first open up a tube of this stuff that you get just a touch of resistance when pulling the applicator out of the tube. That was initially going to be a negative, but then I realized that the slanted tip of the applicator had basically the perfect amount of gloss for me sitting on the tip. It had my medium-full lips covered in one stroke (just like the company claims it will), which most gloss applicators don't do.

No huge, ridiculous gobs to speak of. It's because the little ring inside the tube is a bit tight: it scrapes off any excess product, and even though there is a bit of resistance pulling the wand out, I think it's a really good trade off in terms of packaging design.

Speaking of packaging design, I really like how attractive the packaging is. If you look above at the handle, it's almost... Kat Von D-esque, am I right? Sleek and attractive, but just a little bit rock and roll.

I can get behind that.

Tipsy

Pardon the blur, but I think it helps to show the flecks really nicely. Depending on the way the light hits the gloss, the flecks can look gold, greenish or red. Very impressive in person; I really wish I could do it justice. If you've tried flakies polishes, it's like those but for lips!

Tipsy on lips

The gloss itself is medium-sheer. You can see the wash of pink on my pigmented lips, but it's not in-your-face fuchsia. I think I like it for this particular product just because I feel like it's one of those glosses that's just begging to be layered with other things.

These smell and taste... sweet. That's the only word I can think of. They're just generically sweet like watered down sugar. If you've ever owned Victoria's Secret Lip Gloss in Cupquake, it tastes exactly like that. I don't particularly like sweet/sugary tasting products, but this doesn't bother me. Though it's scented, you can't smell it when it's on, though you can taste it.

This isn't sticky, nor is it greasy. It wears a good three to four hours on me, which isn't bad for a non-sticky gloss.

The Good:

• Interesting shade: duochrome-y flake-y shimmer that you can't feel. I won't say no to that.
• I think this'll layer really well.
• The packaging is well designed, both aesthetically and practically. The little stopper in the tube scrapes excess product off the doe foot, which is a good thing since the applicator is so big.
• Great value for your money. One of these is only five bucks, and that'll get you more than twice the standard amount of gloss: most glosses have just under five grams of product, but this has over ten.
• Wears well for a non-sticky formula. Three to four hours on me easily.

The Bad:

• If you have very thin lips, you may have trouble with the applicator. I don't know this for sure, so this is just speculation. Try it out if you think it'll work.

 The Neutral:

• Some may not like the taste/scent: it's sweet like sugar water.
• This is more of a wash-of-color gloss: medium to light coverage on me.

Overall, I really liked this product and I'm definitely hoping to get my hands on more shades. I think you get a great value for your money and the applicator (while comically large and probably fun to make 'I'm shrinking!' jokes with) gives me the perfect amount of product to cover my lips. I think some people might not be crazy about the scent/taste, but it was fine for me. I also think some women with thinner lips may have some trouble with the applicator, but I can't be sure about that.

These are currently $5.00 from Walmart.

This review contains a sample/s sent by a company for evaluation purposes. All opinions expressed are my own, and fully honest based on my own experience/s.