Love is...

a Turkish brand of bubble gum that was hugely popular in the former USSR countries in the 1990s and is still available in Russia today.

Girls had "Love Is" gum, which you can still buy (and my wife does when over there). Perhaps you remember the popular cartoons of the same name with a man and woman, often naked [oh! now you remember!] and some soppy sentimental slogan.

reminds me of the old joke - Love is... difficult without genitals

Boys had "Turbo", no longer available. The feature was that each gum was double wrapped with an outer wrapper and an inner one which has an extra, collectable pictures. Turbo had images of cars and Love Is has the cartoons of the same name. Kids traded the wrappers, swapping them if they had two of one.

very pythonesque

Often, kids bought them from old ladies who sold them in the street. They'd bought whole boxes of them and were then reselling them individually and profiting at the expense of children's pocket money and teeth ;)