I love cotton candy and had a machine in college, which I left with my nieces.I bought a new one and am very pleased with the quality and speed. It's fun to make Cotton candy and even more tasty to eat. The noise it makes is the bare minimum, so it's not loud. And it's pretty.

The picture with the smaller cotton candy is after using one tablespoon of the flossing sugar. The other picture is after adding a second tablespoon of flossing sugar. You cannot add more than one tablespoon at a time, so you have to power off the machine, add another scoop, then continue building.

There's definitely a technique. I purchased this for an upcoming kid's birthday party. I figure I'll be able to make 4 single scoop cones before needing to wipe the bowl. After the machine is heated, each cone takes about 3 minutes. So, 8 cones in about 30 minutes. Fingers crossed.

About 15 years ago rented a commercial machine form a party store and swore never agin, made a huge mess. That one made too much candy to catch up with for me. Had used a smaller "commercial" machine in college for a fair that was not as messy and thought I could handle it, and this one is a good compromise for home use. IT DOES TAKE PRACTICE.
Decided to try this one after reading several independent reviews from different groups as well as the ones on here.
It was voted in the top 5 machines for home last year. My daughter wanted this for her birthday. At first try I would have given this a lower rating, I read the directions and did as it said but it stuck to the sides and got charred spots when touching the metal spinner in the middle. There was hardly any candy on the cone.
Tried again the next day after watching the video from the manufacturer. It does help to see exactly how they spin the cone and realized I needed to hold it higher at the top of the plastic shield once it built up. Also realized the times are off and did much better the second time around.
IF you watch the video and let it warm up for ten minutes, not 2-3, then wait until the first string of candy forms a web from each side of the bowl to catch it onto the cone you can actually get the size they show on the box.
For being sticky sugar it really does come right off the plastic bowl easily when washed, and wipes easily off the motor head with a damp cloth. We made about 5 cones of candy in a row. I do not know how long it would work before having too much build up on the sides, it may not be best for a large party but OK for a small one. You might have to pry off the build up on the sides of the bowl in between to make more. It does get hot so I would NOT suggest leaving it on for hours at a time, just like any other small kitchen appliance that heats up you would not want your toaster running for 3 hours. I have a laser surface thermometer and pointing it in the middle of the motor where the light and heat are generated the temp. ranged between 300 and 600 during use for 5 cones.
My main complaint would be it does smell, as some of the sugar inevitably slips under the floss head into the motor and gets stuck, unable to be cleaned. You just have to let it "burn" off. But the rest of the unit is very easy to clean. My kids love the flavors. The cotton candy is pretty good, not as good as a big machine or what you get fresh on the boardwalk, but you can't really expect it to be. Kids don't care about the slight difference in taste.

Bought for 8 year old daughter. Easy directions. The flavors are delicious. Came with lots of extra cones for the candy. You can ALSO use hard candy such as jolly ranchers ! Might need an adult to actually make the candy as it requires a constant spin motion to get it wrapped correctly.

Toddlers. Soooo cute. But they LOVE that word MINE and when we were all at the OTHER grandmother's house and she pulled out her cotton candy machine I had HOPES of getting some fresh cotton candy (which is so tender) but her home machine was kept pretty busy producing small cones for the three grandchildren (we were learning.) Eventually they gave me my own cotton candy, but the two year old immediately commandeered it after I pinched off one tiny bite, and I think it's undignified for a 65 year old Grandma to take (cotton) candy (back) from a baby. Fast forward to my prepping for an upcoming visit to OUR house. (We are four hours away.) I got on Amazon and ordered this cotton candy machine because it had high marks and over 1,000 reviews. I also thought I should try it out beforehand to make sure it worked properly before the children arrived. I bought the one with five flavors and I used pink vanilla. My first attempt wasn't so good, but i used a wooden chopstick to knock loose that pink melted sugar you see on the inner rim. I then scraped it together and reloaded it into the spinner, added a bit more sugar, and had another go. And because the grandkids aren't here yet I ate the results of my experiments and satisfied my craving (I mean, jeez, you forget it's just pure sugar"”a little goes a long way.) Clean up was pretty easy"”mainly just water and a little soap. I got some Qtips and wiped up most of the bits that fell through the screen into the heated area. It looks like you can undo a bunch of screws to take the screen off to better clean this motorized part but that would be a hassle. I left the machine cooling on the counter for over an hour and returned to find the sugar ants had surfaced from wherever they come from, so next time I will wash up as soon as it cools off. I think this machine is going to be fun to own.