Candy Hearts Tattoo Inspiration – Littered With Garbage

Branded as either Sweethearts, Conversation Hearts or Love Hearts, we’ll refer to these cute, sweet treats as candy hearts to avoid any confusion.

Sweethearts were first sold in the United States in 1901 under the Necco brand. As the decades passed, changes in society and means of communication meant that additional messages were added to Sweethearts candy including sayings such as page me, fax me, and email me.

At one time Necco were producing 8 billion heart per year and yet in 2018 the company filed for bankruptcy. The rights to Sweethearts were sold to Spangler Candy Company. No Sweethearts were available for Valentine’s Day 2019 due to the sale and issues with the transportation and setting up of the equipment in a few factory.

The flavours of Sweethearts were changed in 2010 but returned in 2020, although the relaunch still had its issues as the printing of words on 2020’s batch of Sweethearts candy were not as precise as previous years. Did you notice if the problem was rectified this year?

It was some 50 years before the UK got their own version of candy hearts with the release of Love Hearts (produced by Swizzels) in 1954.

Sweethearts and Love Hearts share similar sentiments, however there are obvious differences with their appearance. Love Hearts confectionery are not actually a heart shape but round with an embossed love heart and message decorations. The messages were updated in recent decades to include references to technology (fax machines, pagers, email), SMS language, and even emoji faces.

A dupe version called Whatevers can be found in Asda supermarkets, and they happen to also produced by the same company as Love Hearts.

Both the US and UK version of candy hearts have a different flavour assigned to each colour. Which candy heart flavour is your favourite?

As you can see with this collection of candy heart tattoos, traditional sayings do not have to be used – be creative and put anything you like within the hearts (within reason, of course). Your choice of words can represent things you love (movies, film, television, foods) or be a powerful personal statement.

What words would you choose for your candy heart tattoo?

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