Fad diets and quick fixes aside, a California-based cosmetic company now claims their new lip gloss will help users lose weight.

“Always on the lips…never on the hips,” is the slogan for the new Fuze Slenderize Guilt Free Gloss marketed by Too Faced Cosmetics. The flavored lip gloss is made with the same mix of ingredients found in Coca-Cola’s Fuze energy fruit drinks.

According to a press release, the company claims the lip gloss can suppress the user’s appetite with a combination of three chemicals: chromium, a micronutrient known to improve the amount of energy received from food; L-carnitine, an amino acid which boosts energy and super citrimax, which helps maintain a normal appetite and increases energy while supporting a healthy metabolism.

The Fuze Slenderize energy drink promised an energy boost after drinking only one 10-calorie serving, but now all that is required is applying some lip gloss, according to the company.

“The lip gloss works because the skin on the lips is very thin…you will ingest some of it,” said Jerrod Blandino, founder of Too Faced Cosmetics. “It’s playing with nutritional science in a girly kind of way.”

The lip gloss comes in flavors such as Dragonfruit Lime, Strawberry Melon and Blueberry Raspberry and is sold at Sephora, a beauty retailer, for $18.50. The company insists it has quickly become a favorite among celebrities such as Jessica Simpson and Katie Holmes.

Justine Karduck, nutrition educator and coordinator of the SportWell Center, said a person’s lips do not ingest anything.

“Digestion begins inside the mouth, therefore it is not possible to lose weight simply by applying the lip gloss,” Karduck said.

Karduck said weight loss is only possible by burning more calories than are consumed, achieved only by eating less or by increasing activity to burn more calories.

Although there is no hard evidence linking these products to weight loss, The Coca-Cola Company and Nestlé, which market the “negative-calorie” green-tea drink Enviga, performed a small study in 2007 that measured 31 healthy men and women over three days. According to the study, Enviga drinkers who drank three cans each day for three days burned 106 more calories than participants who drank a plain beverage.

Enviga sells for around $1.50 per 12 ounce serving, and since the consumer would have to drink about nine cans of Enviga to burn up 100 calories, it would cost $13.50 to burn that many calories. Simply walking briskly for 20 minutes can burn 105 calories, according to an assessment on the Health Status Web site.

“95 percent of diets fail,” Karduck said. “Lifestyle changes are needed for successful weight loss in the long term.”

Samantha Lloyd, senior in LAS, said regardless of fact or fiction, she would buy the weight loss lip gloss.

“If this kind of diet works, I’ll lose weight rapidly because I’m addicted to lip gloss,” Lloyd said. “Every girl I know is always putting it on constantly, so this could either be a huge bust, or result in a weight loss epidemic.”