Cunning beauty shop theft captured on CCTV

It's one thing to pinch a lolly, it's another to take the bag.

A woman, now dubbed the "Padstow purse pincher", tried her luck at a beauty shop.

She wandered in and popped a Mentos before reaching behind the counter and stealing a handbag.

READ MORE: 'I've been working with Coles for nearly 60 years': Supermarket workers celebrated

The cunning theft was captured on CCTV.

"I didn't hear anything ... she was walking past, (there was) no one in the front, so she tried her luck," Gurmeet, the owner of Lips to Lashes Beauty at Padstow in Sydney's south-west, told A Current Affair.

Gurmeet and husband Addy had $800 in the bag, destined for an orphanage in India which cares for people abandoned as children.

READ MORE: Footy legend Mat Rogers opens up about health scare and loss of father, friends to suicide

The couple donates to the orphanage yearly as part of Addy's birthday.

"I was shocked. We are not in a third-world country where law and order is down the gutter," Addy said.

"They don't know how hard we work to make $800."

Police and people power are trying to track down the sticky-fingered window shopper.