Hard Candy

I finally bit the bullet and bought a bottle of Hard Candy "blind" from a perfume website, based on what I'd read about it. Well, there's no doubting this perfume is sweet! When I first sprayed it on I was overwhelmed by its sugariness and I felt as if I'd been doused in liquid brown sugar. My initial reaction was that I might hate the perfume and have to return it but I decided to ride out the initial mega-sugary wave and see what happened. After half an hour or so it started to smell so much better and I was glad I'd resisted my initial urge to wash it off. I started to smell some of the fruitiness sneaking up, which offset all that sugariness, and definitely the rhubarb gives it a slight kick to freshen it up. Ultimately it ended up smelling lovely - still sweet but it had morphed from super pure sugariness to a warm, creamy sweetness, like melted fudge or warm caramel. Really quite sexy and yummy!! Also, it was still going strong well over 12 hours after I'd sprayed it on. The packaging Hard Candy comes in is very nice - a metallic silver box with pretty flowers all over it, an unusual front flap opening and, as other reviewers have mentioned, a list on the back of the different notes, which is pretty unique. I've never seen that before on any perfume box and I wish more perfume companies would do that! The bottle is actually quite nice too, and the cap looks like a brightly colored, crystalline UFO! So, now I really love my Hard Candy and am so glad I kept my bottle! Hooray. :-)) UPDATE: Thanks to one of my Fragrantica pals, I got to sample Pink Sugar for the first time and I can say that they are both very similar. On my skin though the difference between the two is that Hard Candy smells more like yummy. creamy warm caramel with a touch of rhubarb / passionfruit fruitiness, whereas Pink Sugar is more flat, powdery, dry sweet (almost like icing sugar!) with zero fruitiness. Hard Candy also lasts longer on my skin, has good sillage, plus it's cheaper than Pink Sugar (oh, and the bottle and packaging are far nicer too!). So, for me Hard Candy definitely wins out over Pink Sugar!

I have reviewed this before , but ive been wearing so much of this recently that Ive realised how lost id be without it :) ( I know its "Only " a perfume , but Id imagine others on here will recognise the feeling of "dread" if they were not be able to get hold of an old favorite any more ) I read online that this is now discontinued , so If your a fan this is a heads up. Still lots online , at very low price. Worth every penny. A lot of my expensive perfumes dont last as long or get me the compliments this one does. This is still in my winter top 5 , Ive not got tired of it at all after 2 years of wear....In fact Ive been itching to break it out since late Sep , waiting for the weather to become cool enough , since thi8s is a frag I can only wear in the coldest months. ( I think it would be pretty unbearable in warm weather - Yuk - Sticky sweet meltdown - Not what you want in the summer!) I have yet to find any other perfume that fuses the uber sweet with the sour ( Rhubarb) , I love sourness in perfume when its done right. Hard Candy does get it right , that sour kick and the white tea just gives it a contrast and lift to stop it been over sickly. I just adore this stuff....Going to start stockpiling/hoarding now as I would not want to do a cold winter without it. . . Its freezing here ATM, and been wrapped in a scent cocoon of this frag really cheers me up. It doesnt smell like any other of the "sweetie" scents out there , very unique. I always test new release perfumes and every other "sweet" perfume out there seems weak , bland and generic in comparison. ( Note - I have yet to test "Pink Sugar" , which is marked as similar) I also like H.C's cute make up line , its a shame they never made any more perfumes , id of liked to have seen what they came up with for a summer scent , or a flanker! ....But its not going to happen ....Shame. Great stuff for bargain price :)

This is such a fun scent, it's a shame I can't find a bottle of this former cheapie anywhere at a reasonable price. Hard Candy mainly smells like super sweet, slightly creamy vanilla, caramel and sugar. The fruit notes of rhubarb and passion fruit are perfect for this, they are juicy and a little tart, so they balance the gourmand notes. I love rhubarb, and while it's not extremely realistic in this, it's clearly recognizable and can't be confused with any other fruit. In the drydown the scent turns even more vanillic, and I can also smell some clean musk and jasmine, so it still smells like real perfume despite all the sweet and edible notes. The base reminds me a bit of Lempicka's Lolitaland, maybe it was the inspiration for that one. This is a very girly scent. If it had a color, it would be hot pink or a bright coral. To wear this, you can't take yourself too seriously. It's ideal for holidays, birthday parties and funfairs, or for rainy days at home where you need something uplifting. Bonus: It lasts all day. If you want to take the name literally, it doesn't quite match, this smells more like a sugary cocktail than a piece of hard candy. But it would fit right in with a manicure with a Hard Candy nail polish and matching plastic ring from the late 90s/early 2000s. Too bad that those are long, too.

Me likes it! Hard Candy is such a great perfume! I was looking to my small perfume collection and I found out that everything was to serious and sometimes I just felt I needed something blatantly sweet. First I thought about Fantasy, then Pink Sugar but the ruhbarb note in Hard Candy was fascinating to me. When I was living in the UK I used to buy every week a ruhbarb pie at the supermarket, everybody in my house hated it so the pie was just for me. Probably you dont know but there are no rhubarbs in Portugal, so that pie was something veeery excentric for me. Well, I'm a ruhbarb fan. Hard Candy's top notes are delicious! Yum! I love (yeah) the ruhbarb, mixed with the pepper and the tea note, in the top notes I already can smell the passiofruit and the candy, but its a very good combination that works really well. Unlike most people here, the drydown is what I like less because its too Pink Sugar for me, BUT until we get there we have a explendid time with this fresh, vibrant, happy and sexy fragrance. I'm loving it, my boyfriend is going to rauuu for it and gosh for this price we should all have one! A pink kitty cat with her paws up! This is that kind of fragrance that can putt you in a good mood! Sillage: Gracefull Longevity: All day 8/10

WOW!! I LOVE this stuff !! I bought it blind as i saw it for a very good price - £10 /100ml , i like the packaging too , it looked interesting but i did check the reviews here first :). So glad i did , this is a GOOD sweet scent . its individual enough to stand out , i don't know anyone else who wears it here in the UK ! I have had compliments off lots of people . A man asked me what i was wearing and he misheard me and thought i had said "Prada Candy". I put him right as i think Prada candy is rubbish TBH. Id much rather have some more Hard Candy and i for one will be stocking up on some more bottles before it disappears off the shelves. Very sparkling bright opening with the pepper/rhubarb combo . It settles into explosion in a sweet shop /caramel scent . Nice and strong with good sillage and it LASTS. That's a strong point for me as im sick of modern perfumes that are gone after 5 mins ( like Pradas crappy effort) 10/10 from me for Hard Candy. PS - Nice bottle , looks n smells much more expensive than it is PPS - I agree with Takheat below , I too have not experienced Rhubarb in a scent before HC. I have now looked up other Rhubarb scents to try :)