BELLA 13572 Cotton Candy Maker, Red and White

So I have always loved loved cotton candy. I have always wanted my own machine. After watching and looking I have found that the big cotton candy machines are so expensive for just fun use. So I started watching these tiny personal cotton candy machines and it looks like the quality has gone up and the price has come down enough to create an ideal equilibrium between price and quality.This is a great little machine.It is easy to set up and easy to clean and within about 5 minutes of taking it out of the box we were heating it up and getting ready to make cotton candy.You will not be making a big bag of cotton candy like you might see at a state fair (the kind that takes 3 or 4 people to eat). What you will make is a fairly good personal sized cotton candy batch for one person. It doesn't take long to make but I can't say that I timed it. I'd say about 3 minutes to make a batch after it heats up.We plan on using this machine for all sorts of fun events. Pinewood derby, possibly some fun raisers, summer fun events, birthday parties. The options are endless.How this works and some hints:You assemble this and then you turn it on. It takes ten minutes to heat up. Once it is hot you turn it off so it's not spinning and put the sugar in.We found the sugar doesn't get tossed out if you will turn it off and as it slows almost to a stop you drop the sugar in and then flip it on right away. If the center is still spinning it pushes the sugar to the edges and it doesn't fly out.When the sugar gets spun out and starts coming out in strands we have also found that if you let it build up a little bit before you put your cone in the machine it is easier to get it start to wrap around the cone. Once you begin getting it wrapped around the cone you will then hold the cone over the machine instead of in the machine and spin the cone. This keeps the sugar strands on your cone from melting again in the hot air.Once your machine is hot and if you are making another batch just turn the machine off long enough to stop the spinning (or get it to slow down enough) and put in the sugar and turn it on and start again.When you are finished, disassemble it and clean it up. If you have some hard sugar on there, don't try to use it in the machine as sugar and a little bit of soaking will take it all off.One other hint- if you hear it rattle, check to be sure the top clear cover is installed correctly. If it is loose at all, then it is prone to rattle.

This product did exactly what it is suppose to do! (Make Cotton Candy, for those of you not aware of what this product does.)We used Floss Sugar for my sons birthday party, worked great! Kids loved it.Pros: Can use Hard Candy in this machine! (Thinking Root Beer flavored cotton candy next time.) Once warm, puts out cotton candy at a very nice rate. Only like a 2 min pause between batched of sugar being added and more cotton candy coming out!Cons: Seems a little slow, (10 minute warm up for sugar) but it is only drawing from the 110v outlet which isn't the best for heating elements.6 Month Update: We use this thing all the time (birthday party's, rewards, just because). Works great and still going strong! Highly, highly recommended!Add-on's we got with/for this Cotton Candy Maker:Cotton Candy Express - Fun Pack - Floss Sugar and Cones Kit (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004XM4IO0)8 Function LED Cotton Candy Glo Cones-Pack Of 10 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D7TTBEC)

The media could not be loaded. I bought this to make cotton candy for my 4 year old's birthday party at preschool. I thought it came with some sugar, but it doesn't, so be sure to buy some. I knew I would at least need extra, so it wasn't a problem. We also bought bags with twist ties and paper sticks with cherry, grape and blue raspberry sugar.It took about two hours to make 33 cotton candy using 1 scoop of sugar each, so it was much quicker than I thought it would take. That included cleaning the plastic pieces every 10 times due to the sugar build up. They're small, but perfectly sized for preschoolers.The machine is also super easy to clean. Just run some hot water over the 2 plastic pieces or throw them in the dishwasher. The metal spinning piece is much harder to clean and gets "burnt sugar" marks on it that don't appear to come off even after hours of soaking and scratching with a finger nail. I'm just worried the holes the melted sugar comes out of will get clogged with burnt sugar and it will stop working. Otherwise I love it. I haven't tried putting hard candy in it yet.The instructions say to wait for the spinning to stop before pouring in more sugar, but I find the sugar sprays out much more if I stop it. So instead, I turn it off and then it's almost done spinning I pour the sugar in so it immediately moves to the outside, then I turn it right back on again. Much less sugar comes out the top this way and makes for more cotton candy.Some sugar is also too fine and for some reason you end up with smaller bundles of cotton candy. This isn't the machine's fault, just try different sugar. We bought a bundle with 3 flavors of sugar and paper sticks and the cherry was too fine and made tiny bundles whereas the grape and blue raspberry were less fine and made larger bundles. Not sure why this is, but I've made about 15 of each flavor and its definitely just a problem with 1 flavor, not all of them (so not the machine).

Product worked great for exactly 8 single servings of cotton candy. Only used 3 times then it started over heating and burning the sugar. This is the reply I recieved from the company regarding their return policy... "You may receive a refund for new, unopened, resellable products if returned within 30 days of purchase."