Ten Tantalizing Types of Valentines Candy

What do you think of when you think Valentine’s Day? Well, besides the obvious cards, flowers, jewelry, and pissed off wives who didn’t really want a new toaster oven… You think of candy! It wasn’t so long ago that the only proper candy you’d be offered for this, the most Hallmark-ian of holidays, were those tasteless Necco-wafer like chalky hearts with the standard love messages emblazoned upon, such as “BE MINE” and “I DID U’R MOM”. Today, however, the candy companies have taken a lesson from their selling strategies from such other sweet-savvy holidays like Halloween and Easter and have turned Valentine’s Day (based on a massacre, dontcha know) into another cornucopia of candy goodness. So, to go along with our Halloween Candy collection and Easter Peeps, check out ten sickeningly saccharine sacks of Valentine’s snacks!

PS- Keep in mind that these are all pics taken by me at the risk of my own life at my local Meijer (as you can see from the ridiculous placement of some of the price tags) via my phone, so I didn’t have a lot of time to set the bags properly and adjust the ambient lighting. Just enjoy them and quit yer bitchin’.

10

Valentine Blow Pops

Ah Blow Pops from Charms; the ubiquitous gum-filled suckers that were the bane of a thousand and one school teachers as students would inevitably gets chunks of them stuck in the girl’s hair. Anyway, here we have the Valentine-themed goodies that appear to be heart-shaped. But I could be wrong, it could just be a pink bag. It’s not like I bought the damn things.

9

Beating Heart Butterfingers

Okay, they’re probably not beating. That would be gross and definitely not a good selling strategy. But what they do happen to be are heart-shaped Mini-Butterfingers chock full of all that peanut buttery goodness that’s synonymous with the name. If you know a chick who digs Butterfingers, you can’t go wrong with a new car filled with these guys for Valentine’s.

8

Cookies N Creme Hearts

Ooh la la… they even spelled ‘Cream’ all Frenchy and gay conjuring up ideas that these might be some kind of fancy hoity-toity candy. Yeah, well, they’re not. You see, I did buy some of these (I have a soft spot for phony cookies and cream candy) and they were, how shall I say… oh right: vile. Not a great investment if you wanna keep friends.

7

Hershey’s Minis

Here we have a clear case of just plain ignoring the obvious. Why would a company as long lived and well know as Hershey duck the brilliant idea of wrapping their miniatures in pink paper and just stick to tinting their sacks (ha!) pink? I sure hope that marketing strategist was shit-canned.

6

Kiss Me I’m Hershey

See, now this is what I’m talking about. Hershey got it right on this one: Valentine-themed package, pink-swirled foil, and even the candies are white chocolate with caramel swirls. This is easily one of the coolest candy ideas I found. Hershey has redeemed itself in one step. Awesome.

5

This Isn’t Funny

Laffy Taffy has become a pretty well known candy item of late, so it stands to reason that the ought to grab onto every holiday they can. Sadly, it’s all just a case of beauty being only on the outside. The bag and the wrappers are Valentine’s designs, with hearts and stuff, but the flavor is a ho-hum strawberry cream. And only strawberry cream. Boring.

4

Reese’s Peanut Butter Hearts

Reese’s is classy. They have carved their own little niche for every holiday, especially when they can make a buck by molding their peanut butter chocolate shells into themed goodness. They do turkeys, Santas, eggs, pumpkins, and now hearts. Just brilliant.

3

Snickers

Another idea squandered. Snickers has taken the path of least resistance and just decided to redesign the packaging graphics. No heart shapes, no special candy chunks in there, no pink wrappers (though there are Valentine messages)… kinda sad really. Oh well, I guess sometimes you just don’t mess with perfection.

2

Strikin’ Strawberry

When did strawberry become synonymous with Valentine’s Day? What we have here are sour candies in their designated Strikin’ Strawberry flavors which are heart shaped. So far so good. What else ya got? Valentine Exchanges on them? Like greetings? Alright, now we’re talking. Only the second of the bunch to offer a little trade off. Nicely done.

1

My Tootsie

And the winner, by a unanimous decision: Tootsie Pops! These guys got every piece of this Valentine’s thing right: packaging featuring hearts and pink, candies that are actually Cherry (and possibly heart-shaped… though I can’t verify that) and not the repetitive Strawberry, pink wrappers on each one, and, best of all, fun messages inside each wrapper. That, folks, is how it’s done.