Nostalgia Classic Countertop Cotton Candy Machine, Manual, Retro Vintage Candy Maker Includes 2 Reusable Cones & Scoop, Aqua

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.

was an absolute hit for the kids, easy to use and clean

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

We’ve used it quite a bit, just 2-4 cones at a time.We use crushed up hard candies and mix it with regular sugar and it’s worked perfectly.After a few cones, the sugar starts to burn a bit so we keep it to four/five cones between uses.Honestly great buy for at the house use for a couple of kids.

Not worth the money. We used it once and it worked just OK. Very small batches and you can only do like 3 at a time without having to cool it off and start again. Tried to use it again months later and had nothing but problems. Maybe the Floss went stale because it was months later. All I know is this machine is horrible to try and clean, only makes small batches and isn't worth the frustration. I would NOT buy this product. If you want cotton candy at home buy a real cotton candy machine. Not this toy.

I finally did it! I've always wanted a cotton candy maker, but never ever thought I would actually have one. I'm 67 and the last time I had cotton candy was probably more than 20 years ago. I had forgotten all about it until Costco brought it in a few weeks ago. I bought and ate 4 Costo size bags of cotton candy all by myself. Each bag has 14 bags inside. The amount I paid for those 4 bags of cotton candy were more than the machine cost.I got it this morning and have already treated myself to 4 cones of beautiful, delicious, fluffy cotton candy!! Right in the privacy of my own home!!!!!! I'm definitely living my own dream.The machine is so easy to use. The instructions are easy to follow. It's easy to clean, which I did after every use. I've cleaned that thing many times today already, and I feel another cleaning coming on ;)It didn't come with any ingredients to make cotton candy, but it did come with 2 plastic cones. I placed a separate order for 3 different sugars and a bunch of paper cones, which worked brilliantly!