Cotton candy is pure sugar, yet two dentists played key roles in its history. This episode follows spun sugar from a labor-intensive European luxury to a carnival staple, and into modern food safety headlines.

We look at hand-spun sugar at aristocratic banquets, William Morrison and John C. Wharton’s machine and their Fairy Floss at the 1904 World’s Fair, and Joseph Lascaux’s cotton candy name. We explain the physics of amorphous sugar glass, Gold Medal’s sprung base and its Silly Nilly and Boo Blue flavors, and the 2024 bans in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry over Rhodamine B.

• Why spun sugar was once a status symbol for the wealthy
• How centrifugal force and rapid cooling turn sugar crystals into glass threads
• Why ordinary baking sugar will not work in a cotton candy machine
• How pink vanilla and blue raspberry cotton candy shaped a lasting flavor profile
• Why humidity destroys cotton candy and why some regions banned brightly colored versions