Tastee tattoos - gags discontinued by Kingman - review by Jul!a

I can't honestly say what exactly drew me to try these in the first place, but once I saw them, I had to have them. After having them, I'm not all that thrilled, but still mildly impressed.

So I'll start with the box. While not the most discreet thing ever, it's done in sort of a classy trashy way. There's a picture on the front of the waist to knee section of a woman wearing a pair of panties, a garterbelt, and stockings, along with of course, some Tastee Tattoos. The box is labeled as Tastee Tattoos. The back tells you that this is a novelty product only and that the tattoos will dissolve in water or excessive moisture. Everything on the box is written in English as well as French.

Ingredients: Edisol-M water soluble film flour, sugar, citric acid, artificial flavor and color. This product contains no cyclamates. Being unsure what exactly cyclamates were I did a bit of research and found that basically they were artificial sweeteners commonly used until 1969. The site I got my info from is located here.

The contents of the box consist of "about" 40 tattoos in assorted shapes and sizes such as hearts, arrows, palm trees, doves, and stars, according to the overview page, and the box promises a minimum of 40. I didn't personally count them, I just took the company's word for it. I did get the listed shapes, and here's a picture of them individually. You'll get two different sized hearts, a flowery looking thing, a bird, a star, a large circle, and an arrow, all in a sealed plastic bag that you will have to find a way to cut open without losing everything inside once you do. There's also a little piece of paper with instructions on it.

You're promised a wide range of flavors with these too: Passion fruit, Cherry, Strawberry, Mint, Banana, Pina colada, and Pink champagne. Personally, I couldn't taste a difference between any of these, and the box doesn't have a specific flavor, or any flavors listed. I also experienced a very unpleasant aftertaste, much like something made with an artificial sweetener, which surprised me because these supposedly don't have any.

Each one has a very flimsy texture and feels very much like it would snap in half if you're not careful, but I took a few and rolled them around and there's no danger of it really tearing while completely dry.

To use you're supposed to just lick and stick for a tattoo that will last up to half an hour. I found this didn't work at all really. Your best option for the short term use is to wet the area you want to apply the tattoo to first, then place it down and smooth it out, adding extra moisture when needed.

There's also an option to make it last up to several days with a transfer glue made of a teaspoon of any sugar dissolved into two teaspoons of water and then applying that mixture to the skin and applying your tattoo, smoothing out, and allowing to dry completely before putting any clothing over it.

Make sure not to get them too wet while applying as they will dissolve in excess moisture.

So the first time we tried these, horrible fail. I licked, I stuck, it curled up and fell off. So I decided that I would try these again on my own, wetting the area first, then applying. Worked much better. I have a picture here of one of each on my arm, and one here where if you look really really closely you can see where the tattoos stained my skin from being there. I was able to get the stain off with just a little bit of water and some light scrubbing.

After applying them the second way, it took less than 5 minutes for them to completely dry out. If you used your glue, this would be good, because now you can put your clothing on. I never tried to make the glue, because neither of us were that huge on the taste, so putting that much effort in didn't seem worth it. Since I had these on my arm I was twisting it around and the top flowery thing I managed to get almost completely off just by twisting my wrist.

Now the taste. I figured, no artificial sweeteners, it has to taste somewhat good right? Wrong. Well at first they have just a lightly sweet taste to them. Nothing like any of the flavors listed, but not bad. Then you're eating it, and then you get hit with a mouthful of diet flavoring. Ick. I know our first attempt was a fail because I couldn't get them to stick very well, but after tasting them, I didn't want to put any more effort into it really.

These have a really neat novelty value. They really do. And technically they do meet all the criteria to be a successful product in that yes, they do stick, and yes, they are edible. But the flavor very much leaves something to be desired. However I think that if you were using an edible massage oil or something that might take away from the aftertaste these tattoos have.

If I missed anything don't hesitate to ask.

I won't lie, the only reason these have come out since my initial review was so I could make my friends try them. You know how sometimes you'll be out with friends eating or whatever and one of you goes "holy crap, that's horrible, try this!"? Well that's what these have become in my group of friends. We all think it's awesome that they'll stick, but nobody ever wants to eat them off anybody, so we just peel them off and rinse our skin. I still wouldn't really recommend these to anybody, however I might buy them as a gag gift.