This comforter is SUPER CUTE and great for the money. It is not actual sparkles, but it does look just like the product photos! I'd say the color is also pretty accurate from the product photos.The bottom part looks a lot more *sparkly* than the top where the color is not as condensed. The top half looks like color with some white splatters if you're right up next to it, but from just walking in the room it's not annoyingly noticeable.It's very light weight, which is perfect for our hot sleeper. The shams are a little flimsy, more like regular pillowcases than shams. Our girl likes to use those as her regular sleeping pillows anyway, so that's not a big deal to us. You can see the white back of the shams if you have thinner pillows like we do, but I'd imagine firmer, fluffier pillows would hide the white well. Our sparkle-loving 4YO LOVES it!EDIT: We had our first vomit assault on this comforter (YaY!) So we threw it in the wash after we wiped off the, uh.... Junk...It washed well and nothing started coming unraveled at the seams. Looks, feels, and smells as good as new!