Holiday Celebration 2001

 

There was so much to be grateful for and celebrate once Holiday 2001 rolled around. Bonne Bell's Holiday 2001 Celebration collection was a welcome and exciting addition to the Holiday season. After 9/11 the world was in mourning and needed some extra love, comfort and joy that year. Bonne Bell debuted so many exciting and memorable collections for Holiday 2001, along with many surprises to remind us it’s important to come together and celebrate the small things in life!

The Holiday 2001 collection will always be extra special to me too. I will never forget finding it at Meijer super early that year. It was within the first week of September and vividly remember thinking it was the earliest I've ever found a Bonne Bell holiday collection. The first spotting was the Keepsake Memory Box with 6 brand new Lip Smacker flavors. 

Bonne Bell perfected Holiday collections and set the standard for Holiday lip sets and it was always exciting to find out the brand new flavors for the season! The Keepsake Memory Box brought us 6 fresh & fabulous flavors housed inside a special storage box with a built-in picture frame. The tube graphics and art design were very merry and whimsical on each flavor and the holographic laser labels made them even more attractive. 

Holiday 2001:

Vanilla Angel Cake

Raspberry Ribbon Candy

Watermelon Wish

Cotton Candy Cake

Merry Strawberry

Sugar Plum Bubblegum

Vanilla Angel Cake- BB's first-ever angel food cake flavor with added vanilla sweetness. Extra angelic and so authentic!

Raspberry Ribbon Candy- With the many raspberry nuances from BB, this was still a new creation that captured the nostalgic candy perfectly. A small part of it even reminded me of the Mountain Berry Sun Smackers.

Watermelon Wish- Imagine a watermelon Jolly Rancher with a fresher take and less sweetness. A brand new take on watermelon that BB used only a few times after this.

Cotton Candy Cake- I've raved about this icon before and my senses still dream of being wrapped up in this flavor. Warm, freshly spun cotton candy whipped around a freshly baked vanilla cake. 

Merry Strawberry- Always a classic, I'll forever be in awe of BB for giving us so many different nuances of strawberry flavors. This was a new strawberry with some depth that was used a few times after this.

Sugar Plum Bubblegum- Two icons joined together! This had the classic Sugar Plum flavor blended with the fruitier bubble gum flavor BB used that was similar to Gum Ball Galaxy. An unlikely alliance that turned into a perfect match.

 

I've always adored the artwork done for these labels <3<3<3

The designs went right in line with Bonne Bell's other Celebration collections that came out earlier in 2001. The Celebration introduction started with the beloved launches of Sponge-on Layered Cake and Lip Frosting lip glosses and later came a few other Celebration items we'll talk about in the future here ;). In hindsight I'm curious why Bonne Bell decided to celebrate Smackers birthday 2 years early at this time instead of waiting for the 30th milestone, considering this collection debuted at year 28 for Lip Smackers. Either way Bonne Bell had a good thing going knowing there's always a good reason to celebrate and make new Lip Smacker flavors!

Bonne Bell launched the Holiday Celebration flavors in other fun sets like these iconic Heart & Star gift box ornament trios. Imagine finding these on your tree Christmas morning! They also came in handy to store written notes from friends in.

Notice the typo on this tag? ;)

There were a few other specially packaged sets sprinkled around at different store as exclusives. I absolutely adore this mitten trio bag! Could it be anymore adorable?! You really had to keep your eyes peeled while shopping at different stores because Bonne Bell was always great at surprising us with exciting sets exclusive to certain stores only.

There was even a hat bag out there that came with the Raspberry Ribbon Candy Lip Smacker, Muffin Pet Pal keychain topper and a very elusive Raspberry Ribbon Candy Celebration Cheeks glitter gel (!!!). How amazing is that?!

Remember the Keepsake Memory Box display I mentioned above? Here is an art mock-up from Bonne Bell of what it looked like in all its' glory!

The Star & Heart Ornament trios display was just as special! I remember many stores having these at the registers up front.

If you look closely you can see the mock-up packaging for the Holiday 2001 labels.

There was even a fun Holiday themed Adobe Flash intro on Bonne Bell's website that season that had the same Bubble Gum from Smackersville above come to life, ice skating with a flurry of snowflakes drifting around the page. Anyone remember that?! <3

Heart & Star box trios from CVS store ad, November 2001 

Just when the Holiday 2001 collection couldn't be more perfect, then came the unexpected and adorable Pet Pals holiday flavor collection! This was the first collection the cute and cuddly Pet Pals were on their own to give us 6 fun and festive flavors. This is also the first time Bonne Bell did more than six new flavors for a Holiday collections minus Holiday 1999's Biggy additions.

These were exclusive to Walmart and my Mom actually found them for me and surprised me with the tin before I even started looking for them. A memory I'll cherish forever.

I'll always love the detail BB put into their packaging.

Is there anything more perfect than a Bonne Bell Holiday tin?! And the FLAVORS...

Holiday 2001 Pet Pals:

Raspberry Cupcake

Sugar Cookie

Arctic Mallow

Merry Starberry

Cherry Muffin

Strawberry Eclair

Raspberry Cupcake- Imagine a sweetly spiced raspberry glaze on top of a golden yellow cupcake. A surprise and delight kind of flavor.

Sugar Cookie- Perfectly captured buttery sugar cookie and one of Bonne Bell's first times doing a sugar cookie specific flavor.

Arctic Mallow- A hall of fame-r of BB's mint flavors. Sugary marshmallow blended with the most mellow wintery mint. This kind of reminded me of the white Fresh Mint Tic Tacs but not exactly a dupe and more dessert like. I've tried for years to find something similar to this formula and nothing compares!

Merry Starberry- One of those ambiguous flavors BB delighted us with regularly. This Starberry, NOT Strawberry, proved to be a special flavor that was very blue. Not a blueberry or blue raspberry though but a fruity berry blend that felt icy and refreshing but wasn't necessarily a popsicle or a slush. 

Cherry Muffin- Always giving the best of both worlds this didn't disappoint. This perfectly captured tart cherry bits in a freshly baked muffin fresh from the oven in a tube. This was also was one of the tinted Smackers that gave lips a soft cherry stain. 

Strawberry Eclair- Talk about decadence, picture a rich strawberry chocolate eclair sitting in a bakers display but for your lips. Another reminder there is just no other like Bonne Bell even today.

The sparkle wraps were eye-catching along with the adorable Pet Pals adorning their special flavors. Even though these shared the same sparkle wraps as Cosmic Lip Smackers the glosses weren't shimmery. Now let's take a peep at the tin in more detail.

The graphics on the tin even matched the Pet Pals graphics that were on each tube. Check our Cherry Muffin next to his portrait. You had to really pay attention to notice.

And wait there's more! I told you, BB was really celebrating big in 2001! Organizers were always a big part of our Bonne Bell collections (HELLO Caboodles!) but at the time there weren't too many options for organizers that let you have your most cherished lip glosses on display. The Smackers Organizer set came with a Confetti Surprise Sponge-on Layered Cake and a Strawberry Lip Frosting. The specially designed organizer left room for four additional Smackers you wanted to be on display and even fit pens and other like items. 

Now for a group shot...

The embossed Smackers logo on the bottom made this even more special! Keep in mind many brands even at this time still weren't venturing out to branded merchandise and accessories but Bonne Bell was on top of it even long before this.

The organizer set was exclusive to Target and you could only find it there.

Target ad featuring the Keepsake Memory and Celebration organizer sets, November 2001.

Last but not certainly least are the two Fashion Passion bags Bonne Bell bestowed upon us. Each bag created for the Smackers fashionista came with a #1 Smackers Moisturizing Color for lips, a shimmery and tasty lip tint (think Lip Lix), #2 Smackers Glitter Glossover for lips, a glittery gloss to add some extra shine and sparkle to your pout and also encourage fun flavor layering. There was also a brand new Shimmer Shadow Stick that was a multi-tasking color stick for the eyes and face and the Glimmer Dust compact for the face and body to give extra glow all over and it came with the most adorable Smacker puff for application.

    Lavender Bag:

#1 Moisturizing Color for lips- Lavender Berry Fashion

#2 Glitter Glossover for lips- Crystal Nilla

Shimmer Shadow Stick- Lavender Flash

Glimmer Dust- Lavender Lites w/Smackers puff

Pink Bag:

#1 Moisturizing Color for lips- Pink Strawberry Passion

#2 Glitter Glossover for lips- Sequin Sugar

Shimmer Shadow Stick- Pink*

Glimmer Dust- Pink* w/Smackers puff

Most people really never connected the two but notice the packaging design perfectly compliments the Sparkle Colorglaze for lips glosses that were released right after this collection? This seems to be a story Bonne Bell was starting but didn’t finish. Smackers + color ;). Sure, they revisited this down the line but not with the Fashion Passion DNA they originally started for it. 

The glitter encrusted domed caps gave these Smackers a brand new design. The tubes were also numbered to help you apply them in order but of course you could wear however you chose. I loved wearing the Glitter Glossovers on their own!

The Smackers Moisturizing Color veiled lips with an opalescent glaze of each flavors matching color that was so stunning, while the Smackers Glitter Glossover had glossy monochromatic glitters to compliment the color tint of step #1. Crystal Nilla had stunning purple, turquoise and blue glitters while Sequin Sugar had orange and yellow glitters. I couldn't quite capture the color and glitters during this shoot so I didn't get a pic. The flavors for these were all incredible and wrapped up the Holiday 2001 collection perfectly!

Here's a peek of Pink Strawberry Passion thanks to a dear blog friend Jen <3

Bonne Bell always had a special way of creating memorable moments with their iconic Holiday collections that looking back had much more significance than we could ever of imagined at the time. All the many amazing flavors that came in the Holiday 2001 Celebration collection along with the fun sets still has me celebrating the memories 20 years later. Time is a funny thing and if you were around to experience these incredible collections then count yourself as incredibly lucky!