Maybelline Shine Sensational Lip Gloss in Berry Dazzle

Hi All!

I'm showing you Maybelline's Shine Sensational Lip Gloss in Berry Dazzle today. They came out with these glosses a few years back, and I've picked up two colors (I'll review the other separately) since their release. Each one has a different flavor (yes- taste and scent) in addition to different colors. I think I originally grabbed these because they seemed to have more unique finishes than a lot of drugstore lip glosses, with shimmery, glittery, and iridescent finishes, and at $5.99 a pop (for .38 ounces), it won't break the bank to try one of these glosses, which Maybelline touts as being moisturizing with high shine, a comfortable feel, and no stickiness. Does it live up to the hype? Well... Sort of. I'll let you know right off the bat; I like my other Shine Sensational gloss in Cherry Bloom a lot more than this one.

Why doesn't Berry Dazzle make the same grade as Cherry Bloom? My first reason is the texture. Both feel heavier on the lips than some other "nicer" glosses, and because they're not particularly pigmented, if you need more color (in the case of Berry Dazzle, *any* color), you've got to really load it on. Even though this looks pigmented in the tube, it ends up being very close to my natural lip color, so it just adds shine and glitter to my lips. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I was hoping for something that would get them just a shade or two darker. Berry Dazzle is a plummy color in the tube with loads of fuschia and lavender microglitter. Sounds great, but the microglitter feels gritty on the lips. And while the gloss isn't sticky, it's definitely got a little bit of a tacky feel to it; not enough to bother me, personally, but if you know you're extra sensitive to this, you may want to try a different gloss. The scent is obnoxious, too; it's a very strong saccharine "berry" scent, with a cloyingly sweet flavor. Sure, after I've had it on for twenty minutes or half an hour I forget about it, but it's more noticeable than with most other lip products I've used or reviewed here, and as soon as you uncap these babies, you are assaulted with this sugary-synthetic scent.

My other major gripe with this product is the packaging. I hate squeezy tubes with angled applicators; I like tubes with wands for my gloss. I find these messy and inaccurate, and I hate when the gloss drips into the threads of the screw-on top. However, if this is your preferred packaging, more power to you, and you may be fonder of this product than I am.

Here's a picture of the tube; each one has a different fruit picture to match the flavor.

Berry Dazzle Shine Sensational Lip Gloss

And here you can see the slanted tip squeeze applicator, built right into the tube. Not my favorite, but some people may like this kind of packaging.

Maybelline Shine Sensational Lip Gloss in Berry Dazzle

 And here's a swatch. Notice how the gloss ends up looking just about clear when it's spread as thin as you would wear it on your lips. Does not bode well...

Berry Dazzle on my lips, no flash:

Wearing Berry Dazzle, no flash

And a full photo of my face without flash:

Berry Dazzle by Maybelline on my lips

And here's a set with flash; you can really see the glitter in these. I don't know how I feel about the way this looks in the bright light, though I doubt that anyone would get close enough in direct light to see the chunks of glitter. It also becomes fairly obvious that while this gloss doesn't detract from my lips' natural color, it doesn't really add to it, either. This might not be the case for someone with paler lips, or lips of a different tone, though.

Berry Dazzle, flash! 

Berry Dazzle on my lips, flash. 

Rating: 4/10

While I don't absolutely hate this particular gloss, I wouldn't recommend it, either. It's not a great applicator, the texture is off because of the glitter, and the flavor and scent are a bit too cloying and distracting for my taste. This being said, I realize that these concerns may not be as big a deal to other people as they are to me. For instance, my 6th grade self probably would have considered the glitter and the flavor a plus, and wouldn't have thought to question the applicator. This being said, based on my personal experience, I wouldn't recommend this particular shade of this product, even though my experience with Cherry Bloom was a lot better, so I wouldn't be as quick to completely write off the whole Shine Sensational Lip Gloss line; I'd just avoid the glitter ones and not expect too much pigmentation, if you don't think the flavors and the tube applicator would bother you. I'm not going to toss it just yet, but it's definitely not something I would repurchase, and it's made me more cautious about Maybelline in general, based on my mixed experience with this.