4 Replies

i see it's already been answered pretty thoroughly, so i wish you the best on your kandi journey! i've also just recently discovered it and as an autistic person i've found it's a lovely way to connect with my special interests and feel stylish while doing it

Okay, kandi is based on pony beads, those big plastic beads you usually find in the kids craft section. People add all kinds of beads and charms to it, and bead in different ways from singles (one-string bracelets) to massive elaborate cuffs with big spikes and moving parts. While pony beads are much older, kandi is thought to have started with the 90s rave scene, though it's hard to get facts because everybody was pretty het up on the goofballs. One theory states that kandi bracelets were used by drug dealers to indicate that they were holding, but this makes very little sense in an environment where one only had to say, "Anybody got any drugs?" to get drugs.* More likely people just thought bright colors and glo beads would look cool.

If you've never done beading, this stuff is super easy and you can get excellent results making singles and necklaces with a basic box set of colors you like, found in any craft store and most discount stores (and dollar stores if you're lucky that day). if you want to move up to cuffs, there's a tutorials section on this site (not to mention a boatload of patterns), and loads of beading instruction on YouTube. More colors and styles of beads and better string are in the same stores, as well as Amazon, beadtin.com, aliexpress if you don't mind waiting, and tons of other places.

Perler beads, the kind you melt with an iron, make great kandi charms and are also an art form on their own. I haven't tried this yet because I'm not sure where my iron is.

*My all-time favorite urban legend (it may even be true) is that Americans used to bring bottles of completely legal and harmless Excedrin to the UK and sell the pills, which were imprinted with the letter E, to ravegoers at 5-15 quid a pop.