My Two Favorite Things

Candy and stationery reviews

[candyandstationery]

Candy Review: UHA Rose Candy

I’m not 100% sure what this is supposed to be. Whenever I search this product in English, it says things like “throat candy”, “lozenge” and “vitamins”. (I assume the VC 3300mg part means vitamin C? So based off of this, I suppose it’s something that’s supposed to soothe your throat while giving you a boost of vitamin C. Nevertheless, this is one of my favorite candies!

I’m beginning to really like the UHA brand. The candies they have are simply great.

Packaging: B+

It’s simple and clean. Nothing too special but the packaging is pretty solid. It shows the actual candy, which is nice. The candy itself is very elegant and pretty. It’s rose shaped, with a darker shade of pink in the middle, and it has little pink dots scattered within (I assume it’s the Vit C?)

Taste: A+ 

I’m so in love. This hard candy is tart, and tastes slightly of roses and florals. None of the tastes are too overpowering and they balance perfectly together to make a tart rose flavor that I can’t get enough of. However, I do think some people might not find the tartness as enjoyable. 

Would I buy this again? Yes. This is something I definitely buy whenever I see it. I honestly can’t get enough.

[candyandstationery]

Candy Review: Strawberry Milk Candy

Hey everyone. Sorry for not updating for a while. College gets to me sometimes. But maybe it’s a good thing for you readers, since it means I’ll stress-eat candy through the process. Hah.

Anyway, here’s a review of a hard strawberry milk candy. I can’t read the package since it’s in Japanese, but the design makes it pretty apparent that it’s supposed to be strawberry-milk/cream flavor.

Packaging: B+

It’s not bad, but it’s not mind-blowing. The design is simple, which works well, but nothing too special. But I guess I did choose this out of the other strawberry milk candies because of the packaging, so maybe I’ll give this an A- instead.

Taste: C-

The first time I tried one, I tasted a bar soapy flavor along with the milk and strawberry flavor. I tried a few more and apparently it’s how they’re supposed to taste. The strawberry flavor was very convincing, and was very similar to a real strawberry, so maybe the soapy flavor was a side-effect of wanting a true strawberry flavor? It was easy to crunch into even though it’s a hard candy, which I found kind of disconcerting.

Would I buy this again? No, I don’t think I’d eat it if it was for free. I feel kind of bad saying that, but it’s how I really feel about this candy.

[candyandstationery]

UHA Puccho Miracle Bag

Hey guys! Posting lots today to make up for my inactivity. 

This candy is one of my favorites. The packaging and candy is fun to look at, and also fun to eat! This chewy candy is similar to hi-chew, but with a richer yogurt taste and with fun little surprises inside. UHA seems to have teamed up with JumpFromPaper to make this fun little package! 

Overall:

Packaging: A++ This packaging is great. Plus there's a little handle and resealable lock and everything so you can reuse the cute packaging. The wrappers are fun colorful colors, though the candies are all the same flavor. Everything about the packaging is wonderful and cute.

Taste: A- I really like tart yogurty things. This did not disappoint. The chew lasts a long time and the texture is quite satisfying to have in your mouth. There are little gummies and sugar tablets in the middle of the candies, which offers a fun adventure with every piece. I took out the little things in between for fun. The little white pill-looking things taste like sugar pills. They're supposed to be fizzy which would have been so fun to taste, but they simply tasted like pieces of sugar to me. The gummies are different flavors! Pineapple, lychee, and berry-ish taste that I can't identify. Overall this candy is quite fun.

Would I buy this again? Perhaps every once in a while. The taste is great but I don't find them too addicting, especially when you factor in price. 

[candyandstationery]

Nameko Butter Mascot Biscuits

Hey everyone! Sorry for the inactivity, I've been busy with college things.

This next review isn't really candy, but I think it's cute enough be part of my blog! This biscuit by Tohato is a bit similar to what they have, cute little finger-snacks that are lightly salted. I guess they teamed up with Nameko, which is the Mushroom Growing game that you can download on your phone. The cute mushroom characters on little biscuits makes quite the impression!

Overall:

Packaging: A+ I love these mushroom characters, and love how they are printed on the cookie! The design is fun and well-thought out. I love it!

Taste: D- The taste was indescribably weird. It was slightly buttery, slightly cheesy but also quite sweet and I don't really know what it's truly supposed to taste. The taste was also quite artificial and fake. I can't pinpoint what it is like, but I did not enjoy it. However, the texture was rather nice and crunchy, which makes it a C- instead of a D-.

Would I buy this again? No.. The packaging and biscuit design were totally on point, but I did not enjoy the taste of this biscuit.

[candyandstationery]

Tempo B103C (Soft) vs. Tempo B103P (dot n' dot)

HI everyone, this time it isn't quite a review, but a comparison of versions of the same brand! Tempo is a stationery brand I found in Taiwan. They sold these in a pack of 6 for, if I recall correctly, 45NTD which is ~1.5USD!! It's a pretty good deal.

The main difference I saw was the color choices. Soft was true to its name, the colors were quite soft, but vivid and fun. Dot was more practical in a sense because most of the colors were dark and could probably be used on professional documents and such. The purple from each version was actually the same purple.

I personally like Soft's color and look more than dot's, yet I would probably find myself using dot a lot more because of the ink. I'm not crazy about the polka dots, to be honest. I really like the simplicity of Soft. However, they both have cute little bear faces on the pen clip!!

Both of them wrote smoothly without any noticeable differences.The tips are both .4mm, which is good for book annotating and when you want to write small but legibly. They are both just really fine ball point pens.

In all, though I favor the look of Soft much more, they're not very practical. I can only draw or doodle with them since I don't like light-colored notes or writing (it's a bit hard on the eyes). I would choose dot n' dot if you want to actually use these pens, and Soft if you like collecting pens for their aesthetic. 

As always, thank you for reading! Let me know what you felt about these pens if you've tried them before! Did I leave something out? 

Until next time, sweethearts!

[candyandstationery]

Pentel Caplet .5mm

This mechanical pencil from Pentel is very simple and lightweight. It's one of my favorites because of the plain yet smart design, AND it's super cheap! (around 1.5USD) It comes in 6 dashing colors, which are all in the pictures except for the purple-pink color (which some jerk stole from me in school haha :)) I know who you are). 

I'm pretty much in love with everything this pencil offers. You can make this lightweight pencil even lighter by removing the cap, which offers protection for the writing tip. I like to take these with me when I travel because of this reason. I'm quite in love with the fact that you can cap this pencil, maybe because it feels like a luxury since you don't really need a cap for a mechanical pencil, haha. It's a really nice touch, I must say.

The only problem there is that the eraser is tiiiiiny. It's not a huge deal for me since I always carry erasers with me, but if I let anyone borrow these I always get it back with the eraser pretty much gone :(

Clicking this is quite satisfying, but not exhaustive. I use these pens mostly for homework, writing, and rough sketching. They're quite versatile and probably one of the only pencils I use for both art and academics.

Overall:

Looks: A Simple and sleek! They look so casual but fun at the same time. The colors are bright and eye-catching. I love how this entire pencil is transparent. My problem is that since it is transparent, it eventually looks dirty because of the lead rubbing in the barrel. I don't mind it quite much though since the color is still rather vivid.

Functionality: A+ Again, lightweight and simple. Although they seem fragile-looking because of the transparency, they are quite hardy. I've trodden on mine a few times and the plastic never gives. Clicking and writing with these are always smooth. For the price, I think it definitely deserves this grade.

Would I recommend this? Yup! I high recommend getting a few. These are well-designed, and easy to use. They're cheap and sturdy enough  for homework, notes, and heavy-writing, yet the quality of the pencil is very good. There's pretty much nothing I don't like about these.

Thank you for reading! if you’ve tried this before, let me know what you think of it! if you think this review could have been better, let me know with some constructive criticism!

Until next time, dears.

[candyandstationery]

Zebra Tect 2way Light Drafting Pencil .3mm

This mechanical pencil from Zebra is rather weighty, and makes you feel like you should be working hard when you have this in your hand. The special thing about this pencil is that there is a shaking function, in which you can shake lead out instead of clicking. You can also stop that from happening if you twist the part right above the plastic part of the pencil to “lock”. I tend to lock mine because I find that it makes the pencil more steady. One shake is almost the equivalent of one click (depends on the force).

There’s a tiny little eraser you can take out, it works well but its really really small. 

You can click this pencil very gently for lead to very smoothly come out, more-so than a lot of other mechanical pencils I’ve used. It is probably a good thing because sometimes I stab myself with the writing end which is pretty painful since it’s .3.

Overall:

Looks: B I find this pencil to look very professional, but I’m not exactly crazy about it. I like the unique color of this pencil. I don’t like how this pencil tapers off in diameter for cosmetic reasons but I realize it’s so that it fits your hand better.

Functionality: A Usage of this pencil always goes very smoothly. My only quip is that you can still twist around the cap for the eraser when you lock in back in. I don’t really like it when mechanical pencils have a “loose” part. However, I do like the shaking part especially when you are “in the moment” and don’t want to lose focus by changing your hand position. I do wish the lead sleeve could retract, since .3 is such a fine tip.

Would I recommend this? YES I’ve had this mechanical pencil for a while now. I like the weight to this pencil which makes writing go even more smoothly. I love how I can do lots of detail work with it and I love the fine line it gives.

Thank you for reading! if you’ve tried this before, let me know what you think of it! if you think this review could have been better, let me know with some constructive criticism!

Until next time, dears.

[candyandstationery]

Chibisoda Candy by Nobel

Hi everyone! This is my first post and review. I hope that you will find this blog useful in your future candy and stationery endeavors.

This first review is for Chibisoda Candy by Nobel Confectionery Company. The packaging is sooo cute, I couldn't stop myself from buying it.

There is a cute little animal associated with each flavor!

Everything about the packaging was very well thought out, there was cuteness on every side.

Now onto the candy itself:

There are 7 flavors: grape, cola, (ramune?) soda, peach, lemon, strawberry and melon. These candies were really small, which I guess makes sense since it's called Chibisoda Candy.

The main thing about this candy is that they are essentially supposed to taste like fruit-soda without the fizziness. I felt like the flavors all reflected the real thing really well, I was particularly impressed with the strawberry and peach! The flavors were all very unique and were different from the usual grape or strawberry flavor you would taste in other candies. The strawberry really tasted strawberry instead of the artificial strawberry 

Here is my personal ranking left, with ranking of how true-to-taste the candies were to the actually fruit/soda flavor on the right

Overall:

Packaging: A+

I loved it! The little animals made me smile and were just super cute and fun to look at. The packaging was well-designed and material didn't seem cheap in any way. They really paid attention to detail.

Taste: A

Kudos to Nobel for making unique flavors. Some of the flavors like peach and strawberry are almost like the actual fruit! 

Would I buy this again? Maybe if it was on sale. Although the packaging was great it was enough just to see it once. The flavors are unique and pleasant but I don't think these are flavors I will "crave" anytime soon. 

Thank you for reading! if you've tried this brand before, let me know what you think of it! if you think this review could have been better, let me know with some constructive criticism!

Until next time, dears.