Nostalgia Cotton Candy Machine - Retro Cotton Candy Machine for Kids with 2 Reusable Cones, 1 Sugar Scoop, and 1 Extractor Head – Red

Was nervous about the many poor reviews, particularly recent ones, so put it together carefully, read the instructions, and watched some YouTube videos about cotton candy machines. After making our first set of batches, my overall take is it's a great little unit. I had no trouble getting it going, waited the full 10 minutes for it to heat up before using it, and used candy floss sugar bought separately (unit doesn't come with any). Spun up into floss in about a minute, and was relatively easy to spin out onto cones (came with the flossing sugar), or a straw / chopstick we had around. We made about 6 'batches' consisting of about a tablespoon of sugar (the max for the unit), and they got eaten very very quickly (faster than I could make them).I set it up outside because of the reviews saying the sugar got sprayed 4 ft in every direction. I did not notice any sugar spraying out of it at all for me; my next batch I will try inside. I did however, find some perhaps 25%-50% of the sugar in the batch fails to make it into the floss, and is flung as small particles onto the walls of the bowl in a ring (where the spinning disk is). I collected it afterward (the pieces snapped off easily) and tried putting a couple big pieces in to re-melt and have less waste. That turned out not to be such a good idea, as the weighting wasn't distributed evenly for the spinning disk. The solution is to crush the hard candy into little pieces first, so that it can spin out more evenly, which I'll try next time.I stopped the machine due to the odd rotation that was occurring, and let it cool. The sugar in the head all hardened inside and looked like a fairly nasty mess to clean up. Good news is it's sugar, so it dissolves in water. After cooling for 20 mins I popped the head off and ran it under hot water and dissolved out all the sugar that had hardened inside. Took a good 10-15 mins to get it all out, so I won't be in any hurry to re-create that situation. But all in all it's straightforward to clean and looks like new again.In sum, does what it's supposed to do (makes delicious cotton candy), is easy to set up, easy to use, and easy to clean. 5 stars. Just know it's small batches, you may want to make some ahead of time if you have a bunch of kids / people that want to eat it.

The Nostalgia Cotton Candy Machine is such a fun addition to our kitchen! It’s easy to use and works great with both regular sugar and hard candies, which makes it even more versatile. The cotton candy comes out light, fluffy, and just like the kind you’d get at a fair. It’s a big hit at family gatherings and parties, and even fun just for a weekend treat. Cleanup is pretty simple too. If you’re looking for something fun, nostalgic, and kid-friendly (or just for your inner kid), this machine is totally worth it!

I received this as a gift from my husband after mentioning to him that I loved cotton candy and would love to always have some around. Fast forward to now, and I e used this baby so many times, and it's always given me sweet results lol.Here's some pros and cons I've picked up over the time I've used it:Pros:-Can use pretty much any hard candy/rock sugar-once hot, it starts producing instantly-very easy to assemble, only 3 parts-sizable enough to store easilyCons:-takes about 10 minutes to fully heat up-once at its highest spinning speed, the machine shakes and slowly agitates around counter-plastic cones were not as practical as expected, and they get dirty/messy fast- can be difficult to clean the machine under the spinning element, so overtime, it may smell like burnt sugar, but the smell does begin to disappear after 10-15 minutesOverall, I think having a cotton candy machine is perfect for at home family fun, or just to have a sweet treat when you want, like myself. For the price, it was a great value considering how long and how much it was used. I would recommend this to any beginner cotton candy maker

Wow! Works great, and easy to use. Kids had so much fun!

I've never had a cotton candy maker before, so I can't say what the standard experience is, but this machine does consistently produce fluffy cotton candy. We've used both floss sugar and hard candy to make cotton candy. The floss sugar (whether from Gold Medal, Nostalgia, or the organic kind) all consistently has produced good results so long as the "head" in which you pour the sugar is pushed down well and sugar doesn't coat the top area of the head (which would probably be a side effect of having too much sugar in use at a time). Using hard candies has produced mixed results. Life savers seem to work pretty well but gave thicker irregular strands (sort of look like hand spun wool), but jolly ranchers tended to spit out bits that did not fully thread so we had particles in the air for part of it and what did thread was more crunchy than expected for cotton candy (slightly slivery). We used two different kinds of candy canes and one produced great cotton candy but the other did not. It is fun to try out the candies to see what happens. The particles that end up collecting on the splatter bowl after you've made several cones are yummy; the kids want me to break them off so they can eat these candy chunks after the machine has cooled.Unlike other reviewers I've liked using the plastic cones to collect cotton candy just fine. If you don't have enough, you can just slide the cotton candy off, to reuse them. Also, the bowls and cones clean off easily just using hot water to rinse them.While this machine definitely works to make cotton candy, I have several concerns with the machine's performance relating mostly to vibration issues: (1) it is usually very noisy, but varies in loudness (it is so loud that my son asked me to stop making him cotton candy in the kitchen because he couldn't hear his tv program in the living room), (2) the machine vibrates excessively and sometimes "travels" if I don't hold onto it after I have added the floss sugar (but doesn't seem to travel when I am just warming up the machine) (3) the "head" in which you pour the floss sugar is difficult to clean and continues to contain black stains after soaking and a thorough scrubbing, (4) particles get out of the head and melt in the area just under where the head spins, in an area that cannot be cleaned, and turn black, so far this does not impact performance, but I am afraid it will in the future, (5) the plastic removable bowl is difficult to get secured on all four sides (there is a plastic ridge that should fit under a raised metal ridge and with vibrations even if I get it secured can come loose), (6) the top bowl/splatter shield comes loose from the bottom bowl very easily and will pop off from vibrations (sometimes I have to hold it down because it will not stay secured), and (7) sometimes the head seems to become uneven while it is spinning, causing additional problems, even though I've made my best effort to get it down all the way on the stem. I don't know if I got a slightly bum machine, if I am not getting the head down or completely even, or if this is just standard. The machine works, it just makes me work harder than I would like to get it to work.