2003 Thirst Quenching Lip Refreshment

 

2003 reunited Bonne Bell and Lip Smacker lovers around the world with one of the brands most iconic collabs, rooted from the very beginning of Lip Smackers origins in the 1970's, calling for a reconciliation three decades in the making. The early 2000's brought new competition to Bonne Bell who for the most part, dominated the lip category market for decades with the introduction of Lip Smackers and many other iconic lip products that came along by them during and after. The thing is, they always did it right the first time; flavor, formulation, authenticity, innovation, and so on, while remaining accessible and affordable for all seeking luscious, lip smackin' lips. 

Side profiles featuring the iconic "Good for your lips, moisturizes and smoothes." that was on the original 1970's tubes, along with the familiar Lakewood, OH 44107 address

The competition that came along offered an overwhelming amount of cobranded lip balms and glosses with various American food and beverage brands, but got it all wrong from the beginning; cheap formulas and ingredients, packaging, generic "flavors" that didn't match said cobrand. Never sure how they got away with this and still do (Lotta Luv now Taste Beauty 🗑️). Basically, the cheapest cash grabs built off the backs of those who did it right from the beginning. Anyway, I digress; this forced the beloved Bonne Bell brains to reach back and show the competition, who in fact was thee boss, and revisited some old flavorful friends and introduced us to some new.

2003 Bonne Bell marketing sheet for the Thirst Quenching Lip Refreshment collection featuring the amazing displays these came in 

This brought us our first BIG Bonne Bell cobranded flavor collab in decades! A super Smacker soda pop party got it all started and reunited us with some old faves like 7UP, Orange Crush and Grape Crush, while introducing us to two new favorites that joined the soda brands in the decades after Bonne Bell's original partnerships that took place starting in the mid 1970's.

2003 Thirst Quenching Lip Refreshment Soda Pop relaunch:

 

Cherry 7UP®

A&W Root Beer®

Orange Crush®

Dr Pepper® 

Grape Crush® 

7UP®

Lip Smacker Soda singles

Cherry 7UP- A spritzy and sparkling dupe of the cheery cherry lemon lime soda. They did a phenomenal job duping the actual soda. This flavor always makes my tongue tingle when I think of it. 

A&W Root Beer- BB has done root beer right and from the very beginning, but never A&W until 2003! While this could have easily been the 90's Root Beer Float repackaged, they invested in their R&D and really deconstructed the soda's flavor profile. This was a brand new flavor and a more mild root beer flavor softened by the vanilla in A&W. Such an sweet and authentic dupe.

Orange Crush- (First introduced in 1979) BB PERFECTED authentic orange soda flavor from before the first Orange Crush Lip Smacker was introduced in 1979 with Orange Pop. This was exactly in that same vain but bolder. An outrageously effervescent orange soda pop flavor fit for Kel Mitchell. Seriously, they couldn't of made it more perfect. 

Dr Pepper- (First introduced in 1975) The ride or die since day one, old faithful, perfect pout perfecter that wrapped lips in the same reddish tint as Dr Pepper's can and invaded our senses with the most authentic Dr Pepper flavor. Fun fact: Dr Pepper was the only flavor from the original cobranded collabs that stayed in the original line-up until this time and stayed to the very end of Bonne Bell in 2015. 

Grape Crush- (First introduced in 1979) One of my favorite childhood memories is picking out my favorite soda when allowed to indulge, or "pop" we called it where I grew up, and always grabbing a grape soda. The flavor of grape soda easily permeates my childhood memories along with the smell of fresh caramel corn popping in the mall- but that's for another time. Knowing this was coming out in my favorite lip product in the world, I could barely contain myself and let me tell you, Bonne Bell delivered! The most perfectly captured grape soda flavor outside of the original drink that you can get. A perfect dupe of Grape Crush and I may just be sitting a many of these still so I'm never without it. 

7UP- (First introduced in 1976) Ok, you know I regularly praise BB for being the most meticulous in cosmetics as it gets. I've tried nearly every product they brought out from the 90's-on and smelled what came before that. I can probably only count on my hand the amount of one-off, head scratching flavors they've put out and 7UP is one of them. While this is very much a lemon lime flavor, it always reminded me of Froot Loops cereal. Very much that lemony-citrus burst you get when spooning in those first few crunchy bites. What's interesting is as it settles there is a bit of effervescence, but I mostly still get Froot Loops. (Can you imagine how amazing Bonne Bell cereal collabs would have been!?) Anyway, they definitely made up for this with the Sprite Lip Smacker that came after, but I don't want to cause any competition friction. 

The DPSU (Dr Pepper/Seven Up) flavors were offered as singles as well as trios that came blistered on a card and in trio canes with Grape Crush and Dr Pepper keychain toppers as adorable mini soda cans. This launch was a big deal and Bonne Bell promoted these heavily in the following few years after this initial relaunch. There were limited edition Holiday sets for these as well, although no new flavors were added until a few years down the line. I recall Walmart having an exclusive duo in their checkout lanes that featured 7UP and Cherry 7UP. 

The design for these featured large logos of each soda on the front with minor accents right off the soda cans and the legendary Lip Smacker logo to the right. Bonne Bell left the classic "Good for your lips, moisturizes and smoothes." which was a slight nod and revision to what was on all the original 1970's Lip Smackers tubes that once read "Moisturizes, soothes, protects against sunburn and chapping". I loved that minor but MAJOR touch! The wraps were metallic to reflect the look and texture of soda cans which added the perfect touch. 

I vividly remember hearing these were coming out when I was visiting the Bonne Bell store at the Lakewood, Ohio Georgetown offices in early 2003, when Mrs. Bell informed my friends and I. We were SO excited though at the time there wasn't a launch date just yet. Later in the year when visiting the biannual warehouse sale that June, we were peaking into the window of the Bonne Bell store that was closed because it was a Saturday, and low and behold there was our first peak at this intoxicating collection. There by the window sat just one trio with Orange Crush, Cherry 7UP and Grape Crush. You would have thought we found gold by how we were acting and within a few weeks we found the big display of these at our local Meijer and went crazy! There were also print ads in all the major magazine publications like Seventeen, YM, Cosmo Girl, Teen Vogue and others that summer. 🤎

Lip Smacker Thirst Quenching Lip Refreshment trio cane bucket

For general audiences reading this, you have to understand that cobranded collabs still weren't a thing in the world of cosmetics back in the early 2000's (outside of the one aforementioned new brand who diluted the idea and cheapened the experience), so having Bonne Bell reenter the world of flavor collabs decades after they first paved the way, was earth shattering for collectors. Especially in a time full of exciting consumer brands booming in the world of food and beverage, that came along years after Lip Smackers were first on the scene. The possibilities were endless and flavor ideas abundant. Perfect for the world's first flavored lip product who nailed authentic flavors since 1973!