Beauty Product of the Week: O Gloss

What is it? Smashbox's wildly popular O Gloss Intuitive Lip Gloss With Goji Berry-C Complex™ is "a naturally pink-hued lip gloss. Get a shiny pink pout all your own! This intuitive silky gloss reacts with your personal skin chemistry to transform from clear into your own custom shade of pink. The innovative formula is packed with an exclusive Goji Berry-C Complex™, ginkgo biloba, and pomegranate seed antioxidants along with revitalizing marine botanicals and moisturizing avocado oil for lustrous shine." Available at Sephora and department stores for $22.00.

What did you think? O Gloss is the "IT" gloss of the moment. Everyone raves about it and it's one of the Best of Beauty products at Sephora, so it was with high expectations that I tried it out. It is with a degree of sadness that I say I am far from impressed. I'm not buying the hype, nor would I buy this product.

In the interest of fairness, here is what I like about O Gloss:

• The concept. A product that is "intuitive" and that changes appearance based on each individual user is intriguing.
• The color. On me, O Gloss was a pretty berry-pink shade. It was very natural and flattering.

Now, here are my complaints:

• The applicator. In my humble opinion, I would have preferred that O Gloss be packaged in a tube that has an applicator--either a brush or foam head. I am not fond of the rather bare-bones "squeeze it out and slide it on" approach to O Gloss. Because of the applicator (or should I say, the LACK of an applicator), I found O Gloss difficult to apply. I always had either too much or not enough on my lips. A brush or foam tip would have solved this.
• The taste. Or, again, the lack there of. One thing I like about lipsticks and glosses is knowing that they're on my lips. I like the way a lot of lip products taste or make my lips feel. This product has almost no scent/flavor, which some people (not I!) might like.
  
• The feel. O Gloss felt really thick and oogy on my lips. I can't really describe the feel. My lips weren't sticky, they weren't matte...they just felt smothered under a layer of thick goo.
  
• The lack of shine. I like my gloss to be glossy. O Gloss doesn't give off that sexy shimmer that most glosses provide.

The final verdict? Skip it. There are far superior products to spend $22 on. Heck, if you want a natural color on your lips, why not spend less than $5 and pick up a tube of Burt's Bees? Smashbox has a lot of great products on the market, products that live up to the hype. O Gloss...at least in my opinion and I am admittedly going against conventional wisdom...is not one of those products.