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These Double Ended Food Scented Marker Pens scare me a bit, because as well as being a handy highlighter pen that will help you highlight important information in your notebooks, textbooks, diaries and any other book with text in, they're also scented with a variety of weird & wonderful flavours that represent your favourite foods. It's odd... but also fairly charming.
Yes, that's right - each pen has two highlighter markers within it, with two different colours & two different 'flavours' - in this review we'll be looking at each different flavour combo and decide how accurate each pen's scent is, and consider if this is something that needed to exist or not. |
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It makes sense to start with the best one, right? If so, the Melon Cream Soda Highlighter pen is probably the best of the six possible flavour combinations in my humble opinion. It's nowhere near as divisive as the other flavours, and has received a unanimous verdict of being 'the best one' amongst the Tofu Cute office. I didn't poll everyone, but I'm going to speak for everyone by saying, conclusively, that this is the best one.
One side of the highlighter makes lines in a turquoise green and smells strongly of melons. It's a delicious, fresh smell that mostly seems to match the smell of a freshly sliced melon, rather than some sort of artificial equivalent. The other side makes lines in a light yellow, and smells strongly of vanilla ice cream, with an image indicating how a vanilla ice cream scoop might be added to a delicious melon soda (like melon ramune) to make an ice cream float. When the highlighter lines are drawn on top of each-other it makes a lighter green that looks just like 'melon soda'.
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If you know anything about Japanese desserts, you might be familiar with Honey Toast, which is also represented in our Loppy Honey Toast Squishy series - it's a simple Japanese dessert where you bake a cube of bread in honey, and top it with a variety of things like fruits, cream, ice cream & any other sweet things you might want. It's pretty great.
Well, this pen is like the perfect representation of that in highlighter form, or at least as close as you could get to it. One of the highlighters is a light pink and smells like the aforementioned honey toast. It's interesting how they can replicate the scent of something so specific, and have it work so well. The other side has a light yellow marker which smells like honey - a lot sweeter than the toast smell, and more overpowering in general. The two highlighters combined, as well as being in two of the most iconic highlighter colours, pink & yellow, make this a strong pen in the lineup. Is it as good as the melon soda pen? I don't think so. But is it a cool pen regardless? Yes. |
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I've realised that we're essentially descending in terms of my personal preference for these pens. I like the Melon Soda and Honey Toast pens the best, and whilst this Caramel Latte one is still of good quality, I wouldn't say it quite compares to any of the rest of them in terms of being memorable or exciting. This one is called 'caramel latte' because it has both latte and caramel flavours for its two parts. If you're a fan of coffee you might really like this one, but I've always been more partial to tea.
The caramel flavour does strongly resemble the scent of caramel, and this part of the pen writes in pink. The other side makes blue lines and has a strong sweet coffee scent - together they make a delightfully sweet pen with two cute colours. Overall, it's still one of the better pens in the set. |
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So this one's where things start to get a little weird, which is why the 'cheesecake' pen is moved closer to the bottom of the list. I use quotation marks around the word 'cheesecake' in order to call into question why they named it this, because although the pen does indeed have a cheesecake scent on one of the pens, it's also masking a deep secret - the other highlighter nib included here is a 'cheese biscuit' flavour. What does this mean, I hear you ask?
The answer is that the cheese biscuit scent is not only bad, but so opposite to the fairly delightful cheesecake scent that it's a bit of a strange experience. Going from one scent to the other is like receiving an actual cheesecake of your favourite flavour, only to discover someone has lightly sprinkled mature cheddar across the top of it. Maybe that's something you enjoy though - if so, you'll love this pen. |
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So whilst the cheesecake pen is one of two very different halves, the Teriyaki Burger is a bit more honest with its savoury scents. The teriyaki side is a lot more of a pleasing smell than you might expect however, with the illustration seeming to suggest that this is some form of 'honey' teriyaki, with hints of the previous honey toast pen emerging here.
The burger smell, however, is a completely original flavour that smells exactly like what you might expect from some char-grilled beef with condiments and toppings. It's not exactly a bad smell, but much like the cheese biscuits flavour, it is definitely a really weird experience to detect such a scent from the end of your highlighter pen. But if you're really into burgers, why not give it a try? |
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Here we are at the final pen, which is aptly named 'cheese potato'. This has both a red & yellow highlighter, with the yellow side being shown as some sort of cheese covered potato fries and the red side being shown as a bottle of tomato ketchup. The ketchup smell is what you might be expecting, and the likeness to real ketchup was somewhat worrying - I immediately became concerned that the highlighter itself was somehow made out of solid ketchup, or something (it isn't).
And just when you thought we were done with the sad smell of artificial cheese that was so clearly not necessary on the 'cheesecake' pen, it returns here in a worse form for the yellow highlighter. I don't know if it's a mind trick or if there is a geniune difference, but it seemed so much worse than the 'cheese biscuits' version. I didn't want to return to the cheese pens to confirm if there was any real difference in their scents, but all I can say is this: if you really like cheese, you might enjoy this - it smells a lot like the flavouring of some 'cheese puffs' or similar cheese-flavoured snacks. A lot of Team Tofu are not into it (including myself as you can probably tell) but I'm sure it's the perfect highlighter for a discerning cheese fan. Just don't bring it near me, please. |
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| Have you gotten your hands on one of our food scented highlighter pens yet? What do you think of them, and what's the best flavour? Feel free to leave us your thoughts on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Don't forget to check out our latest products for more oddities, cute stationery & more! |
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These Double Ended Food Scented Marker Pens scare me a bit, because as well as being a handy highlighter pen that will help you highlight important information in your notebooks, textbooks, diaries and any other book with text in, they're also scented with a variety of weird & wonderful flavours that represent your favourite foods. It's odd... but also fairly charming.
Yes, that's right - each pen has two highlighter markers within it, with two different colours & two different 'flavours' - in this review we'll be looking at each different flavour combo and decide how accurate each pen's scent is, and consider if this is something that needed to exist or not. |
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|
It makes sense to start with the best one, right? If so, the Melon Cream Soda Highlighter pen is probably the best of the six possible flavour combinations in my humble opinion. It's nowhere near as divisive as the other flavours, and has received a unanimous verdict of being 'the best one' amongst the Tofu Cute office. I didn't poll everyone, but I'm going to speak for everyone by saying, conclusively, that this is the best one.
One side of the highlighter makes lines in a turquoise green and smells strongly of melons. It's a delicious, fresh smell that mostly seems to match the smell of a freshly sliced melon, rather than some sort of artificial equivalent. The other side makes lines in a light yellow, and smells strongly of vanilla ice cream, with an image indicating how a vanilla ice cream scoop might be added to a delicious melon soda (like melon ramune) to make an ice cream float. When the highlighter lines are drawn on top of each-other it makes a lighter green that looks just like 'melon soda'.
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If you know anything about Japanese desserts, you might be familiar with Honey Toast, which is also represented in our Loppy Honey Toast Squishy series - it's a simple Japanese dessert where you bake a cube of bread in honey, and top it with a variety of things like fruits, cream, ice cream & any other sweet things you might want. It's pretty great.
Well, this pen is like the perfect representation of that in highlighter form, or at least as close as you could get to it. One of the highlighters is a light pink and smells like the aforementioned honey toast. It's interesting how they can replicate the scent of something so specific, and have it work so well. The other side has a light yellow marker which smells like honey - a lot sweeter than the toast smell, and more overpowering in general. The two highlighters combined, as well as being in two of the most iconic highlighter colours, pink & yellow, make this a strong pen in the lineup. Is it as good as the melon soda pen? I don't think so. But is it a cool pen regardless? Yes. |
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I've realised that we're essentially descending in terms of my personal preference for these pens. I like the Melon Soda and Honey Toast pens the best, and whilst this Caramel Latte one is still of good quality, I wouldn't say it quite compares to any of the rest of them in terms of being memorable or exciting. This one is called 'caramel latte' because it has both latte and caramel flavours for its two parts. If you're a fan of coffee you might really like this one, but I've always been more partial to tea.
The caramel flavour does strongly resemble the scent of caramel, and this part of the pen writes in pink. The other side makes blue lines and has a strong sweet coffee scent - together they make a delightfully sweet pen with two cute colours. Overall, it's still one of the better pens in the set. |
So this one's where things start to get a little weird, which is why the 'cheesecake' pen is moved closer to the bottom of the list. I use quotation marks around the word 'cheesecake' in order to call into question why they named it this, because although the pen does indeed have a cheesecake scent on one of the pens, it's also masking a deep secret - the other highlighter nib included here is a 'cheese biscuit' flavour. What does this mean, I hear you ask?
The answer is that the cheese biscuit scent is not only bad, but so opposite to the fairly delightful cheesecake scent that it's a bit of a strange experience. Going from one scent to the other is like receiving an actual cheesecake of your favourite flavour, only to discover someone has lightly sprinkled mature cheddar across the top of it. Maybe that's something you enjoy though - if so, you'll love this pen. |
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So whilst the cheesecake pen is one of two very different halves, the Teriyaki Burger is a bit more honest with its savoury scents. The teriyaki side is a lot more of a pleasing smell than you might expect however, with the illustration seeming to suggest that this is some form of 'honey' teriyaki, with hints of the previous honey toast pen emerging here.
The burger smell, however, is a completely original flavour that smells exactly like what you might expect from some char-grilled beef with condiments and toppings. It's not exactly a bad smell, but much like the cheese biscuits flavour, it is definitely a really weird experience to detect such a scent from the end of your highlighter pen. But if you're really into burgers, why not give it a try? |
Here we are at the final pen, which is aptly named 'cheese potato'. This has both a red & yellow highlighter, with the yellow side being shown as some sort of cheese covered potato fries and the red side being shown as a bottle of tomato ketchup. The ketchup smell is what you might be expecting, and the likeness to real ketchup was somewhat worrying - I immediately became concerned that the highlighter itself was somehow made out of solid ketchup, or something (it isn't).
And just when you thought we were done with the sad smell of artificial cheese that was so clearly not necessary on the 'cheesecake' pen, it returns here in a worse form for the yellow highlighter. I don't know if it's a mind trick or if there is a geniune difference, but it seemed so much worse than the 'cheese biscuits' version. I didn't want to return to the cheese pens to confirm if there was any real difference in their scents, but all I can say is this: if you really like cheese, you might enjoy this - it smells a lot like the flavouring of some 'cheese puffs' or similar cheese-flavoured snacks. A lot of Team Tofu are not into it (including myself as you can probably tell) but I'm sure it's the perfect highlighter for a discerning cheese fan. Just don't bring it near me, please. |
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| Have you gotten your hands on one of our food scented highlighter pens yet? What do you think of them, and what's the best flavour? Feel free to leave us your thoughts on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Don't forget to check out our latest products for more oddities, cute stationery & more! |
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