Update: Click here to read our Wrigley’s 5 Vortex Gum review

Wrigley’s 5 Gum is marketed to teens and since they were introduced a few years ago, the flavors available have grown at a rate equal to the number of Real Housewives shows. Because teen tastes change more often than Lady Gaga changes outfits during a concert, it’s easy to see why Wrigley’s continues to pump out new flavors of their gum that comes in cool black boxes.

Their soon-to-be latest will be the juicy green apple-flavored Wrigley’s 5 Vortex. It’s the second straight fruit-flavored gum for the Wrigley’s 5 Gum line. Vortex follows the watermelon-flavored Prism.

The sugar-free gum will come in the standard 15 piece packs.

Here are a few product reviews posted this week from other blogs we like.

I didn’t know there were Xbox 360 controller-shaped caffeinated soaps. I guess it’ll give me something else to play with while in the shower. (via Possessed By Caffeine)

Wrigley produced chewing gums that are supposed to taste like Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream and Strawberry Shortcake. Hey, Wrigley! You know what would make a great flavor for gum? Listerine. Or meat. (via Foodette Reviews and Snack Love)

If I don’t get a Ghostbusters 3 movie next year, the only way I could cope is by toasting Stay Puft Caffeinated Marshmallows with a proton pack stream. (via Caffeine-A-Holic)

If you want to consume 1,800 milligrams of caffeine and 37,500 percent of your daily recommended intake of vitamin B12 at one time, now you can. But I wouldn’t recommend it, unless you want to experience the greatest crash ever — death. (via What I Drink At Work)

Ben & Jerry’s now has a snickerdoodle ice cream, which means they’ve created ice cream flavors of two of my least favorite cookies: snickerdoodles and ginger snaps. I hope they don’t make an ice cream based on my third least favorite cookie — the Spritzgebäck. (via On Second Scoop)

Here are a few product reviews posted this week from other blogs we like.

Wrigley’s 5 gum has a watermelon flavor called Prism. Hmm…Cobalt, Rain, Flare, Elixir, Solstice and now Prism. It’s like Wrigley is trying to encourage children to study science and math through chewing gum names. Or if you just count Rain and Solstice, they’re encouraging children to become TV news meteorologists. (via Gum Alert)

The latest Carl’s Jr. creation combines a burger with a Philly Cheesesteak. I’m not impressed. If they combined a burger with a Philly Cheesesteak, Coney Island hot dog, chicken strip and beef burrito, and called it the Carl’s Jr. Meat Megazord, then I would be impressed. (via Junk Food Betty)

Trader Joe’s sells something called manitaropita. Sounds like Trader Joe’s has gone into the business of selling rare sexually transmitted diseases. (via Gigi Reviews)

Hey, Jelly Belly! Quit making hard jawbreaking candy and just do what you do best, which is make unnatural tasting jellybeans. Oh wait, it seems you also make natural tasting jellybeans. (via Sugar Pressure and Foodstuff Finds)

Subway has an exclusive Sun Chips flavor — Monterey Jack and Sundried Tomato. Great. More options. Now extremely indecisive people will not only have a plethora of veggie options of mull over, but also a vast array of crunchy chips. (via Does It Hit The Spot?)

Read our reviews of the other Wrigley’s 5 Gum flavors here and here.

Wrigley’s 5 Gum line, which is marketed towards teens and strokes all five of their senses hard, recently got two new additions. The new flavors, Solstice and Zing, joins Lush, Elixir, Rain, Flare and Cobalt in the Wrigley’s 5 line and in the list of names you should not name your children.

The new flavors may have names similar to their older siblings and raves, but their taste isn’t as straight forth. Lush has a fruity flavor, Elixir has a berry taste, Rain is like spearmint, Cobalt has a peppermint flavor and Flare has a cinnamon taste, but according to Wrigley, the new flavors will have a “unique, game-changing flavor experience,” which is marketing speak for it starts out as one flavor and ends up as another. Solstice starts off warm and ends up as a cool winter mint, while Zing begins sour and ends up sweet.

Look for the new flavors at your local convenience store or with all of the other impulse buys lined along the checkout counter at your favorite mega-superstore.

(Note: TIB reviewed the previous flavors. Click here to read the Lush and Elixir review. Click here to read the Rain, Flare and Cobalt review.)

Back in my day, the only fruit-flavored gum we had was Juicy Fruit. It came in banana yellow packaging, you couldn’t make bubbles for shit with it, it did nothing to freshen breath, and if I were caught chewing it, I got called “fruity,” which at 10 years old I had no idea what that meant, nor did the 8 year old bullies calling me that. Chewing gum companies have recently been releasing a plethora of fruit-flavored gum, like the Wrigley’s 5 Gum Lush and Elixir flavors, and I can understand why. Because all the mint flavor names are taken.

Spearmint, Peppermint, Wintermint, Chill Mint, Ice Mint, Mint Blast, Shiver Mint, Cool Mint, Fresh Mint, Mint Freeze, Frost Mint, Arctic Chill, Cool Frost, Winter Ice, Wild Winter, Vanilla Frost, Hypermint, Icy Blast, Sweetmint, Winterfresh, Polar Ice, Supermint, Crystal Mint, Winterfrost, Midnight Cool, Ice Fresh, and I could go on and on until the break of dawn, but as you can see the minds that hawk mint gums pretty much have sucked the cock of minty marketing names dry to the point where not even tickling the balls of creativity will help.

I’m of the mindset that gum should be used for freshening breath or if you want to digest something for seven years. I don’t want my breath smelling like fruit. What am I? A five dollar backalley whore? Everyone knows that high-class hookers chew minty gum, unless their client wants them to chew something else, but that usually involves a schoolgirl outfit and costs extra. However, the Wrigley’s 5 Lush and Elixir flavors are slowing making me realize that perhaps being a five dollar backalley whore isn’t so bad.

With a name like Lush, I expected it to taste like Tara Reid or any cast member from MTV’s Real World, but instead it had a tropical flavor, which tasted like it consisted of pineapple, banana, and another fruit, which I couldn’t figure out. It was good and it tasted similar to other “tropical” products I’ve tried in the past. As for the Elixir flavor, its berry taste starts out gross, but once the initial flavor subsides after about a minute or two, it becomes a decent chew and has a strawberry-ish taste. While chewing Elixir I was hoping it would increase my hit points in my RPG game called Life, but I checked my stats and I’m still a “Fruity Weakling.”

(Nutrition Facts – 1 stick – Less than 5 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, 2 grams of sugar alcohol, 0 grams of protein, 0 ounces of alcohol, and 0 hit points attained.)

(Editor’s Note: Gigi also reviewed these flavors at her blog. You can read her reviews here and here. TIB reviewed the original Wrigley’s 5 gum flavors last year. You can read that review by clicking here.)

Item: Wrigley’s 5 Gum (Lush and Elixir)
Price: $1.49 each
Size: 15 pieces
Purchased at: Wal-Mart
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Lush)
Rating: 5 out of 10 (Elixir)
Pros: Tropical flavored Lush has a good flavor. Once the initial flavor subsides, Elixir has a decent strawberry-ish flavor. Sugarfree. Decent lasting flavor. 15 sticks per pack. Nice packaging. Lush doesn’t taste like a Real World cast member.
Cons: Not minty. Elixir’s initial flavor is gross. Uses aspartame. The cock of minty gum names is all used up. Elixir didn’t give me any hit points. Digesting gum. Five dollar backalley whores. I’m still a Fruity Weakling.

The new Wrigley’s 5 gum is being marketed to teens, young adults and anyone else who looks like they belong in the audience for MTV’s TRL.

I’m sure Wrigley’s is hoping that this new sugar-free gum becomes a trend among this valuable age demographic, but I don’t think their public relations people, who sent me three boxes of Wrigley’s 5 gum to review, realized that sending me those samples will probably kill any chance of it becoming popular, because I’m the Grim Reaper when it comes to trends. When I use or do something that’s considered trendy, popular or cool, I unintentionally kill it with my scythe of uncoolness.

It’s like when William Hung sings a song, he ruins it forever. I can’t dance to the Ricky Martin song “She Bangs” anymore because of him.

Speaking of dancing, I have stopped the popularity of so many dance moves that I am not allowed to be on or around a dance floor. I killed the Macarena, The Bangles “Walk Like An Egyptian” dance, Riverdancing, the Electric Slide and whatever that dance Flavor Flav does in Public Enemy music videos.

There was supposed to be a third Breakin’ breakdancing movie called Breakin’ 3: Pop and Lock With Me, but that was cancelled thanks to me and my attempts to do the Worm.

Sure, trends aren’t meant to last forever, but I have the ability to give them an earlier death than the trend hoped for, which helps ensure them a place in a future VH1 retrospective special. You’d think someone out there would thank me for this curse, especially those who used to wear fanny packs or clothing that came in neon fluorescent colors and those who drank Zima, but I haven’t gotten a thank you card or an A&E Biography about me.

So by chewing the Wrigley’s 5 gum I’ve already made it uncool, much like how I killed the phrase, “Fo’ shizzle, ma nizzle” and ruined the Rachel hairstyle made popular by Jennifer Aniston during her Friends days. I probably even ruined the product’s marketing slogan, “5 is the new black,” even though I’m not quite sure what it means. To be honest, its name sounds like something very random that was either pulled out of a hat or pointed to on a refrigerator with a magnetic poetry kit by someone who was blindfolded or an extremely inebriated Britney Spears.

Each pack of Wrigley’s 5 gum has 15 sticks and there are only three flavors: Cobalt, Rain and Flare, which is “cool speak” for peppermint, spearmint and cinnamon, and is now no longer cool because I mentioned it. Its slim, black packaging looks trendy and fits well in the front pocket of my jeans, but because I think it’s trendy, it’s no longer trendy.

If you’ve had any spearmint, peppermint or cinnamon gum from Wrigley’s, you probably won’t notice much of a difference with the Wrigley’s 5. It’s like listening to the Nickelback songs “How You Remind Me” and “Someday.” The intensity of each flavor isn’t as strong as their regular Wrigley’s counterparts, but each stick lasted surprisingly long, like a piece of Extra gum.

Overall, Wrigley’s 5 gum is good, but doesn’t seem like it’s anything innovative.

Although, all of that doesn’t really matter since I already killed any chance of it being popular by chewing it. It’s much like how I stopped the spread of Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star shoes, Starter jackets, the 7-Up “Up Yours” green t-shirts, Slap bracelets, acid washed jeans, Where’s Waldo? books, Members Only jackets, and Techno music.

(Editor’s Note: Brian at the Candy Addict also received free samples of Wrigley’s 5 gum. You can read his review here.)

Item: Wrigley’s 5 Gum
Price: FREE
Purchased at: Received from nice people at a PR firm
Rating: 3 out of 5
Pros: If you like other peppermint, spearmint or cinnamon gum from Wrigley’s, you’ll probably like these. 15 sticks of gum. Nice packaging and its slim shape makes it easier to slip in my jeans front pocket. Long lasting flavor. Stopping the popularity of fanny packs, bright florescent clothes and Zima.
Cons: Not anything innovative. Product name seems kind of random. My ability to kill trends. No A&E Biography about me. Acid washed jeans. An extremely inebriated Britney Spears, because you might end up married to her.