The Creme Shop x Hello Kitty Pumpkin Spice Latte Hand Cream Smells Like Hot Dog Water

I was happy to come across the Creme x Hello Kitty Pumpkin Spice Latte Moisturizing Cream and I even found the Caramel Macchiato one too! I’m in California for the past week and I think TikTok knows it because they keep recommending me all these TJ Maxx and Home Goods haul videos and everyone posting them is in the Southern California area!

Recently, I saw a girl in San Diego who was hauling all these cute the Creme Shop x Hello Kitty Hand Creams! She found a few different ones like Strawberry and Peach! I got terribly excited and immediately drove to the closet Marshalls to see if I could find any.

Guess what?

I did!

And they were FALL ONES! I didn’t find the Strawberry one but I counted myself really, really lucky to score a Pumpkin Spice Latte and a Caramel Macchiato one. It deserves to be said that TJMaxx and Marshalls have been getting a lot of The Creme Shop items lately. Makeup, skincare, etc…! I’ve seen quite a few items pop up in New York but haven’t indulged in anything. I’m not really a big fan of the Creme Shop to be honest. But they got me on the hand creams!

These are going back to Marshalls immediately. I can’t drive there fast enough to return them. Let me give you a word of advice. If you see these, immediately turn around, run out of the store, and never return.

So, as a New Yorker I follow the golden rule. Don’t eat the street meat. Just don’t. You’re coming to New York? Don’t eat anything off a cart sold on the street. Trust me. That means hot dogs…! On a hot day in Manhattan, there’s a very unique scent to hot dog water that fills the air as you walk past a cart. It’s not so delicious.

Don’t get me wrong! I love hot dogs (well, except Chicago hot dogs! It’s a culture shock to a New Yorker when Chicago starts serving up a hot dog with pickles on it! Horror!) but not ones sold from a cart in New York. Sorry, not sorry. I just won’t go there.

Well, the moral of the story here is if you don’t like hot dogs or the smell of hot dog water I’d wildly suggest you NOT indulge in these cute The Creme Shop x Hello Kitty Pumpkin Spice Latte and Caramel Macchiato Hand Creams. Holy cow. I dunno how they did it but the Creme Shop managed to capture the essence of Eau de Hot Dog Water perfectly. I sincerely kid you not when I smelled these I nearly vomited. The smell is god awful. I have never tried the Creme Shop hand creams before this and I probably won’t again because this put me off big time.

These say “limited edition” and I did look on the Creme Shop’s website and even Googled (I found one seller on e-bay selling one for $18.99 and I was horrified!) and I didn’t find much about either scent. I’m not sure if they are new, from last year, or even older than that. If you know please tell me because I want to believe they are just old and perhaps the scent morphed and went off. I know this happened with Hempz Pumpkin Spice & Vanilla Chai Body Moisturizer which is being sold at TJ right now. It’s $16.99 for a large bottle but it’s last year’s bottle (the packaging is different). It smelled light and I hardly detected the pumpkin and vanilla in it at TJ but it was strong and lovely at Ulta!

When I got to the car I couldn’t wait and instantly tore into the Pumpkin Spice Latte. It had a small foil seal around the opening and I kid you not as soon as I took it off the scent just bitch slapped me across the face. It hit me like a ton of bricks and my head snapped back. It smelled like really old hot dog water. The hot dog note is crazy strong! I was brave though and convinced myself that it probably just smelled like that until you applied and massaged it in. Boy oh boy was I wrong. I applied some on my hands and it was one of the worst beauty decisions of my life. I couldn’t race fast enough to the nearest sink to wash my hands. The worst part was I was in the car for about 45 minutes stuck in SoCal traffic which mean the entire car smelled like hot dogs. The steering wheel of the car still SMELLS like hot dogs even after I wiped it down with a Clorox Wipe. Revolting.

And guys, there was no redemption to be had here. I felt positive that at the very least Caramel Macchiato would work out. But the hot dog note is even stronger in that compared to the PSL one. I have my receipt and I’m demanding my $12 and change back for these. And if anyone asks me why I’m returning a used hand cream I DARE THEM TO SMELL IT. I double-dare them! I TRIPLE DOG DARE THEM to question my choice to return it.

If you see these. Run, run so fast that the wind carries your feet back to the car! And don’t say I didn’t warn you about hand creams that smell like old, stale hot dog water on a Manhattan Street smack in the middle of a hot, humid August afternoon.