As Valentine’s Day approaches, all thoughts turn to matters of love and romance. How to find it. How to show it. How to feel it.

While red roses, expensive Champagne and fancy chocolates might be the way we adults a-wooing go, the little child inside us will always have a soft spot for a much smaller, sweeter form of seduction – the candy heart. Sure, they might taste a bit like chalk, but they’re just so darn cute. 

Who among us does not remember the magical thrill when our first primary-school crush passed us a candy heart etched with their secret message? “BE MINE”, it might say, as your own heart skipped a beat.

Before too long, you would reply with your own: “YOU + ME” perhaps, or “XOXO”. And so has love bloomed for generations, sparked by the exchange of not-very-nice-tasting and slightly dodgily typeset heart-shaped lollies. 

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Who invented candy hearts?

Candy hearts have, in fact, been around for more than 120 years. They were invented by the New England Confectionery Company in Massachusetts, US, which was incidentally also the first company to hit on the idea of turning a medicinal lozenge-making machine into a lolly-making machine, thereby forever making the world a better place for everyone.

At first, these ‘Sweethearts’ sweets weren’t even heart-shaped. Instead, messages were stamped onto larger, scallop-shaped candies. Considering the courting styles and social mores of the times, messages were less “LETS DO IT” and more “Please send a lock of your hair by return mail”. In fact, that is an actual message from circa 1860. Easy tiger. Slow your roll. 

Fast-forward to the turn of the 20th century, and the company had figured out how to whittle the candy down into a small heart shape. Thus, Sweethearts messages became much simpler and more abbreviated. And as the years passed, while classics like “KISS ME” will always be in style, other messages have had to adapt with the times.

“FAX ME” and “PAGE ME” were probably big hits in the 1990s, but have since been replaced with more relevant (ie, actually existing) technology. Similarly, “YOU R GAY”, which was apparently doing the rounds in the 1950s, has long been relegated to the dustbin of history.

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Candy hearts in the 21st century

For most of this century, there’s been an annual Sweethearts theme. In 2023, for instance, it was pet names, which inflicted the vomitous “BEARY CUTE” upon us all. Just a year earlier, 2022 was frantically upbeat, with words of encouragement like “U GOT THIS” and “WAY 2 GO”, which just goes to show how messed up we all were by lockdowns by then. 

In 2024, Sweethearts were dedicated to friendship and appreciation, which was very nice, but also super dull (sorry to all the BFFs out there, totes HEART U). The company that now owns Sweethearts also hit upon a way to appeal to the confused singles of the world while simultaneously finding a use for even-more-poorly-printed-than-usual candies that would otherwise have been chucked – a limited-edition box of Sweethearts dedicated to the ‘situationship’. This is what we old people call ‘friends with benefits’. The candies had regular messages like “TRU LUV” on them, but were all blurred, just like your messed-up love life. 

In 2025, along with a global theme that included hearts that featured messages of love in different languages (“MEINE LIEBE”, “MI AMORE”, etc), Sweethearts moved from the situationship to full-on commitment, with hearts featuring messages like “MOVE IN?” and “MARRY ME”, along with scannable link to services like moving trucks and online wedding services.

Credit: Supplied

What is the candy heart theme in 2026?

In 2026, even brightly coloured candy hearts are having to face the grim realities of life in a time of rising prices, crippling housing costs and stagnating wages. With most of us unlikely to be able to afford any fancy Valentine’s celebrations this year, Sweethearts has introduced ‘Love in This Economy’ candy hearts to the mix, with messages including “SPLIT RENT”, “SHARE LOGN”, “CAR POOL”, “BUY N BULK” and “COOK FOR 2”. It’s a bittersweet reminder that, while love may be eternal, romance is currently stuck behind a paywall. 

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